[sacw] [ACT] sacw dispatch #2 (28 March 00)

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Wed, 29 Mar 2000 00:01:46 +0200


South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2
28 March 2000
__________________________
#1. RSS in Burma (always been fond of dictators)
#2.These men of RSS: Old & Bald & Still Wearing Khaki
#3. Immigration & identity at Eid (a by the well known Pakistani Columnist)
#4. Violence In Jammu & Kashmir And Democratic Rights
__________________________

#1.
[Recieved from Shamsul Islam, New Delhi]

The RSS has always been fond of dictators like Mussolini and Hitler.
This old pastime continues even today.
We are reproducing a report from the Organizer, the official organ of the
RSS, dated March 5, 2000 (page 20) about a celebration of Sanatan Dharama
Swayamsevak Sangh, the counter parts of the RSS in Burma. The Organizer
report clearly shows that this celebration was attended and endorsed by
the military junta of Burma which heads one of the biggest cartels of drug
running in the world. It is the same military junta, which is keeping the
N. Peace Prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi under detention for last 13 years
even though she secured 92% votes and 90% seats in the elections of 1988
for National Assembly of Burma.The report clearly under lines the grave
fact that the Indian brass of the RSS is proud of khaki shorts mingling
with the most corrupt, degenerated and autocratic military rulers of
Burma. It is really intriguing that the Indian Ambassador to Burma was
there in his official capacity to grace the celebration.

Organizer
March 5, 2000.

Sanatan Dharma Swayamsevak Sangh is 50
Myanmar Ministers grace the occasion
=46rom Our Correspondent

The 50th anniversary of the Sanatan Dharma Swayamsevak Sangh was held at
the National Theatre on Myoma Kyaung Street, Yangon, recently. Secretary-2
of the State Peace and Development Council, Lt. Gen. Tin Oo attended the
meeting.
The programme was attended by ministers and senior military officers.
Minister for Commerce Brig. Gen. Pyi Sone, Minister for Social Welfare,
Relief and Resettlement, Maj. Gen. Sein Htwa, Minister for Health. Maj.
Gen. Ket Sein were among the prominent persons who attended the function.
Besides, the Ambassador of India in MYanmar Shri Shyam Saran, executive
council members of the Sanatan Dharma Swyamsevak Sangh were also present
at the function.
The Secretary-2 delivered speech at the function. Shri Shyam Saran
released a commemorative issue on the 50th anniversary of the Sanatan
Dharma Swyamsevak Sangh.
_______

#2.

The Telegraph
28 March 2000
Op-Ed.

OLD AND BALD AND STILL WEARING KHAKI

BY RADHIKA RAMASESHAN

As the sun sets on the city of oranges, and cybercafes and multi-cuisine
eateries get ready for business, away from the commercial hub a large crowd
of senior citizens gears up to pay respect to tradition.

The venue is the RSS base at Nagpur's Hedgewar Bhavan, a nondescript
three-storeyed structure with no aesthetic aspiration. Clotheslines sagging
under the weight of blue and white striped drawers, frayed vests and khaki
shorts are the sights which greet the eye.

The occasion is the "boudhik", an inspirational session to be addressed by
new RSS sarsanghchalak K.S. Sudarshan, anointed that morning. But the
excitement that should have marked a change of guard in an organisation
that claims to be the torch-bearer for the Hindus all over the world is
conspicuous by absence. Instead, the ritual is played out with a
precision arising more from decades of practice than enthusiasm for the
days to come.

A band belts out the RSS anthem and other martial-sounding tunes, but with
a plethora of false notes, it ends up sounding worse than a marriage barat.
The master of ceremonies announces from a specially-erected dais that there
are two separate enclosures for the sick and disabled swayamsevaks. Those
unfit are not expected to go through the physical drill =97 a march past and
a few callisthenics movements =97 that precede Sudarshan's address. They are
almost as many in number as the "able-bodied".

Sudarshan, hailed as the "leader of the next millennium" as he formally
took over the Sangh=92s reins from Rajendra Singh in the morning, dwells mor=
e
on the past, with Muslim-bashing as its underpinning, than the future. He
starts off with why Mahatma Gandhi was "forced" to back the Khilafat
movement launched by Muslims to protest the overthrow of the Khalif by
Kamal Ataturk in Turkey, and when it "failed", he pointed out that the
Muslims "vented their ire" against the Hindus. "The Muslims who
participated in the Khilafat andolan accepted an alien culture. Islam has
no concept of a nation state, so it uses religion as the basis for creating
nations. In that sense, a Muslim cannot be a nationalist or an
internationalist, he can only be communal," asserts Sudarshan.

=46rom "Muslim communalism" to "Hindu awakening" =97 the RSS chief traces RS=
S
history and ends with an exposition of the Ramjanmabhoomi chapter, which
many swayamsevaks admit was written primarily by VHP chief Ashok Singhal.
"Victory is ours. This is the fifth and the most decisive chapter in our
history because an epic battle will be fought between the pro-Hindu and the
anti-Hindu forces. But no one can stop the pro-Hindu forces from success
and marching ahead," he declares.

There are no cheers, no claps of the kind one had heard at the height of
the Ayodhya days when Singhal and his rabble-rousing sants made more
inflammatory statements. The swayamsevaks fill up barely a third of the
sprawling Resham Bagh outside Hedgewar Bhavan. In the rest of the ground,
unmindful of Sudarshan=92s oratory, boys continue playing cricket and
football.

In both its mindset and composition, the RSS seems to be afflicted with the
geriatric syndrome. The city of Nagpur epitomises the problems that have
caught up with the outfit which remains in a time-warp.

Barring the Maharashtrian Brahmin pockets of the old city, the rest of
Nagpur seemed oblivious to the fact that a high-level delegates=92 conventio=
n
was taking place on March 10, 11 and 12. Avinash Deshpande, a former
swayamsevak turned company-executive, explains the causes behind this
apathy: "For a number of reasons, young people from the middle-classes are
no longer attracted to the RSS. More than anything else it has to do with
the fact that the present generation is completely apolitical and
concentrates more on careers and opportunities abroad. The RSS has also not
been able to infiltrate the working class areas and the slums."

Ramaji, a taxi-service operator and a member of the Bahujan Mahasangh,
gives the Dalit perspective on the RSS: "The worst communal flare-up in
Nagpur took place some 30 years ago, and that was the turning point as far
as we were concerned. We were used as the foot soldiers of the upper castes
against the Muslims. We have woken up to this reality, and wherever there
are politically conscious Dalits, the RSS has not been able to enter."

The number of politicised Dalits sporting caps lettered "Save India, Save
Constitution" all over Nagpur is itself a rebuttal to Sudarshan's
self-proclaimed agenda of junking Ambedkar's document and having a
"Hindutva-centric" one.

Caught between the trappings of liberalisation, evident in the burgeoning
shopping complexes of Nagpur with Pantaloons, Nike, Shahnaz Herbal clinics,
and Thai food outlets and the assertion of Dalit "power", the RSS is in a
Catch-22 situation. It cannot jettison the swadeshi shibboleth overnight
and neither can it disown orthodox Hinduism with the in-built caste
structure.
_____

#3.

DAWN
25 March 2000
Mazdak

IMMIGRATION AND IDENTITY AT EID
By Irfan Hussain

AS I write this, it is the day after Eid-ul-Azha in England and the Daily
Telegraph has carried photographs and stories of the ritual slaughter of
sheep in France and Britain. Apparently, sacrificing animals is illegal in
=46rance, but given that there are four million Muslim immigrants there, the
police are reluctant to make arrests. In many cases people have erected
plastic screens to mask the blood and gore from the road as they despatch
newly bought sheep in suburban fields. In Britain, local authorities have
permitted this slaughter in abattoirs. In either case, locals have reacted
to these photos and news items with some revulsion.

Another custom imported into the West by foreign immigrants is the business
of forced marriages. A number of horrifying stories have been printed in
which the plight of young women brought up in the United Kingdom and then
virtually kidnapped and forced to marry relatives back home and endure
conditions they have no experience of. This, too, has been criticized and
parents have often been prosecuted.

These random reports of cultural differences underline the difficulties
faced by guest workers in adapting their customs and lifestyles to fit into
their new homes. Or in these cases, not adapting. For host populations,
these frequently bizarre (and often barbaric) practices are a test of their
tolerance. Britain has been much more accepting of cultural differences
than most other European countries. The uproar in France over girls wearing
headscarves to school simply would not have occurred in the United Kingdom.

In the current climate of political correctness prevailing here in the UK,
it is considered to be ill bred to comment openly and disparagingly on
foreign customs that fly in the face of local culture and traditions. The
Brits have long become accustomed to the smells and aromas of
subcontinental cooking; indeed they have taken to the cuisine like ducks to
water. But things like West Indians driving fast and flashy cars with the
music going at full blast raise hackles as well as eyebrows. Muslim women
swaddled in traditional veils are objects of scorn and pity. Islamic
radicals in Bradford fulminating against western values and demanding the
enforcement of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie cause alarm and fury.

The subtext here is that if these people refuse to change their customs to
fit into their adopted home, why don't they go back to where they came
from? In this seldom-articulated debate, immigrants reply that they are not
breaking the law by clinging to their cultural roots. They are generally
hard-working, tax-paying citizens and are simply exercising the freedom of
expressing their identity by dressing and behaving as they are accustomed
to. And if the locals don't like it, tough. When we complain of racism and
intolerance - the most extreme example of these attitudes being the
phenomenon of 'Paki-bashing' - we need to put things into context. Would
Pakistanis accept foreigners buying and eating pork in Pakistan, just
because their dietary habits permit it? Would we tolerate the skimpy
dresses men and women wear in the summer? So before we accuse others of
intolerance, it is important to examine just how tolerant we are.

But more to the point in a discussion of multiracial coexistence, we need
to analyse the motives that brought these migrants to western shores, and
how best they can cope with life in a strange and unsettling environment.
Clearly, the vast majority are economic refugees who have endured great
hardship in order to make a better life for themselves and their families.
They are not generally bothered about what locals think of them as long as
they are allowed to get on with their lives. Not very educated, their
overriding concern is that their children are not 'contaminated' with what
they perceive as the lack of morals in the West.

They are particularly protective of their daughters, just as they would be
back home. These rigid parental attitudes cause the second generation of
immigrants great emotional confusion and turmoil. Already different by
virtue of their colouring, school-going children of migrant workers try to
blend in by adopting the accents and mannerisms of their schoolmates. But
at home, they are expected to behave as South Asian children with all that
implies in terms of deference to elders, respect and obedience. Girls in
particular are not supposed to meet boys, although their western
girlfriends do so without any social stigma attached to this normal
interaction.

This schizoid behaviour creates its own tensions and pressures as children
are forced to lead two very different lives from an early age. In the
working class areas, they are often subjected to racial taunts despite
their efforts to fit in, and at home they have to switch back into the role
of good Asian children. As a protective shield, and in an effort to
re-assert their identity as they grow older, many of them become more
'desi' than they would have back home. For some, this search for identity
takes on a fundamentalist form.

But this deliberate return to their roots causes greater isolation and
alienation, and although racism is now muted, the fact of commercial life
is that nobody wants to employ a ferociously-bearded man, no matter how
qualified he is, just as women receptionists wearing head-scarves are not
seen as the best advertisements for a company. So when complaining of
unemployment among young immigrants, these factors need to be kept in mind.
It is not my purpose here to minimize the element of racism in the West.
Although it has declined significantly in a single generation, it continues
to mar relations between the guest and host communities. But more than
colour differences, it is the contrasting cultures, traditions and values
that separate the two.

The fact is that Africans and Asians now play an important role in
everything from sports to fashion to medicine. Educated immigrants are
accepted as equals in the upper echelons of society because they do not
make a point of flaunting their differences. The problem arises more among
the working classes where both communities are generally poorly educated.
Third generation children of immigrants who have no first-hand knowledge of
their homeland have far fewer hang-ups, and are therefore more easily
accepted. Above all, they have acquired professional education and training
and have been absorbed into a booming economy. In the United States, most
South Asian migrants are better educated and without a social safety net,
have had to sink or swim. In most cases, they have swum, and now form one
of the most affluent ethnic communities. Very few of them have the time or
the inclination to aggressively flaunt their cultural identity as they work
harder than most other groups to get their share of the American Dream.

=46or most migrant groups, there is a need to cling to their identity lest i=
t
be submerged under a foreign culture. But courtesy - and practical
considerations - demand that local customs and traditions be respected.

_____

#4.

The Hindu
Tuesday, March 28, 2000

VIOLENCE IN JAMMU AND KASHMIR AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS
By Asghar Ali Engineer

THE RECENT massacre of Sikhs has once again brought the Kashmir issue
into focus. It is suspected that the Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out
this massacre. The militants deny any role in the killing of 35 Sikhs
and allege that the Army or paramilitary forces were behind it,
which is hardly convincing. These allegations and counter-allegations
do not matter to the victims.

All sections of society have condemned the massacre in no
uncertain terms. Apart from others, all Muslim leaders who matter have
denounced the ghastly act. The Naib-Imam, Abdullah Bukhari, called it
an inhuman act and said it was aimed at disturbing communal harmony. He
also said that no religion permitted killing of innocent people. The
working chief of the Jamat-e-Islami, Maulana Jalaluddin Umri, also
denounced the massacre and urged the Government to punish the guilty.

The U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, in his interview to the ABC
Network, said ``I believe that there are elements within the
Pakistani Government that have supported those who engage in violence
in Kashmir.'' It is quite likely that the militants carried out this
massacre to put the Kashmir issue in the forefront during the
Clinton visit. Whatever the purpose, such acts cannot be condoned,
even if the cause be just. Unless we learn to consider human life - any
life for that matter - sacred no cause is worth supporting. After all
why do we carry out any struggle? In order that human life can flourish.

Violence cannot solve any problem, it only aggravates it.
Violence appears justified in certain circumstances to certain people.
But those who take a long term view and are aware of the consequences
will never advocate its use, much less such indiscriminate use.
Violence has no place in any society, much less in a democratic one.
Here Gandhiji remains most relevant. His philosophy of
non-violence, whatever its source of inspiration, is not only
relevant but also morally highly desirable. Violence is democracy's
very anti-thesis. It is surprising that those supposedly fighting for
the rights of the people of Kashmir have no respect for the rights
of others. Otherwise, how could they have killed innocent Sikhs. It is
not happening in Kashmir alone; it is a worldwide phenomenon. The
world over, violence is being used indiscriminately for securing
``democratic rights''. We can cite several examples, Bosnia for
instance. Thousands were massacred in Bosnia, hundreds of women were
raped. Why? The Serbs wanted to secure their own rights.

The religious right perpetrates violence of the worst kind, and that
in the name of religion. It is an insult to religion to maintain - as
the religious right always does - that violence is permissible to
establish one's own religious rights. In the U.S., the religious
right is known to use violence most indiscriminately to force
on people what it calls its doctrine of being ``pro-life''. They
extinguish life to promote their doctrine of promoting life! Many
``pro-choice'' people have been massacred in the U.S. by self-confessed
``pro-life'' people. So many nurses and doctors performing abortions
have been killed, and so many institutions where abortions are performed
have been set afire in the U.S. The Khalistanis in Punjab also resorted
to violence most indiscriminately for several years. And all this to
promote a state based on the Sikh faith.

And these rightist bigots kill more people of their own religious
tradition that those from rival faiths. More Sikhs than Hindus were
killed in Punjab by Khalistanis. In Kashmir too, more Muslims have
been killed than Pandits. Violence promotes not only suspicion of the
extreme kind, it also engenders extreme intolerance in the ranks of
its advocates. On the one hand, they suspect every other person of being
an enemy agent and, on the other, any differing opinion is considered
heresy punishable only by death. Thus, liberal Sikhs were the most hated
enemies of the Khalistani Sikhs and liberal Muslims in Kashmir of
``Jihadi'' militants.

In certain cases, violence may be inspired by years of
persecution by a dominant section of society and its use may appear
justified in a certain phase of the struggle. But soon violence
generates its own dynamics and acquires a self- sustaining
quality. It is easy to begin violence but near- impossible to end
it. Violence is a kind of power and those who take to arms and are hardly
ever ready to give them up. They will find one or the other excuse to
perpetrate violence unless some greater power intervenes. In Serbia and
Kosovo, violence could be contained only after the intervention of the
NATO.

Violence, even if it began as liberative, not only becomes
repressive soon but also leads to another equally-despicable
consequence: ethnic cleansing. The Bodo extremists in Assam want to
create Bodoland and want to cleanse the area of all non-Bodos. They have
killed so many Assamese Muslims and others in their area. The extremist
Sikhs tried to kill several innocent Hindus in Punjab to cleanse the
area of all non- Sikhs. Similarly, the Kashmiri militants are seeking to
eliminate all Hindus and Sikhs so that Kashmir will be monopolised by the
Kashmiris.

As peaceful opposition is an essential part of democracy,
diversity and plurality are its integral parts as well. Democracy raises
certain tensions in a diverse and pluralist setup. Regional
identity is threatened by migration. Many rightist forces raise the
slogan of ``sons of the soil'' and want to stop migration or reduce the
number of those already settled in an area. Thus, Article 370 in case
of Kashmir has become a bone of contention. The article was inserted
in the Constitution to respect the autonomy of Kashmir and to
safeguard its identity. However, the contents of Article 370 were
diluted (almost out of existence) on the one hand, and, the Kashmiri
militants are out to destroy its internal plurality, on the other, by
expelling Pandits or killing Sikhs.

This is indeed a dilemma of democracy, which cannot be easily
resolved and is bound to create social tensions between the
principles of diversity and regional identity. But such tensions have to
be resolved through democratic means. However, it is easier said than
done. It is a most delicate task which requires honesty and integrity,
on the one hand, and extreme caution and statesmanship, on the other.
Unfortunately, populist politics has its own compulsions and no
politician - with hardly any honourable exception these days -
displays these qualities. On the contrary, they aggravate social
tensions by playing popular politics. And such opportunism leads to
violence. Punjab and Kashmir are obvious examples of tensions leading
to violence being provoked by the then ruling party. So much bloodshed
could have been avoided if the social tensions had been managed in a
statesmanlike manner.

The country's integrity depends on maintaining diversity and
pluralism, which, however, is always resented by the religious right.
It pushes for uniformity, which ultimately leads to ethnic cleansing and
to an authoritarian culture. And authoritarianism, which is not
permanently sustainable in this age of democracy, ultimately leads to
the break up of a country. Uniformity, thus, is the enemy of a country's
unity rather than its base, as the rightist forces often tend to
believe. Pakistan broke up in 1971 because West Pakistan was
intolerant of its own internal diversity. Strengthening of
diversity not only leads to democratic governance but also
strengthens unity and integrity.

Those who stand for the autonomy of Kashmir should do everything
possible to promote its internal diversity. They should not try to
polarise society between Muslims and non-Muslims and Kashmiris and
non-Kashmiris within the State. It will harm their own cause. They should
welcome inter- regional autonomy within the State, i.e. the autonomy of
Jammu and Ladakh.

Within Muslims of Kashmir too there is religious as well as
regional diversity, between Shias and Sunnis (Shias of Kargil and Sunnis
of the valley) and cultural differences between the Muslims of Jammu
and the Muslims of the Valley.

There is no pure Kashmiri Muslim identity either. In fact, there is no
escape from diversity in any region of any State. The Hurriyat - an
umbrella organisation - itself is so diverse. Thus, an amicable solution
in Kashmir is possible only when violence is given up and dialogue begins.
____________________________________________
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