[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 7 Aug. 00 (India: Communalism Special)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
6 August 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

[Dont Remain Deaf, Dumb & Blind To the dangerous doings of the Hindu Right
in India
Keep that country clean, Trash the RSS.]

#1. India: Bombay Citizens comment on brutal killings in Kashmir
#2. India: Christians Through 'RSS' eyes
#3. India: Basu's statement hits out at Babri mosque demolition
#4. India: Terror in Surat (Gujarat)
#5. India: We the Hindus (a rejoinder to the RSS Jerk MV Kamat)
#6. The Swastika Brigade

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#1.

6 August 2000

Dear Sir
The brutal senseless killing of over hundred innocent people in Kashmir,
most of whom were on their sacred pilgrimage to Amarnath and the workers
who were sleeping, is one of the most shocking and condemnable acts of
violence. The militants who have done this for whatever the cause they
espouse are barbaric, inhuman demons who need to be given the severest
punishment possible. These killers, these butchers who have committed this
heinous crime, cannot be called as human beings. We condemn their methods
and acts in a wholehearted manner. It is surprising that the state govt.
of Farooq Abdullah and the central govt. have been caught napping. How
come they could not anticipate that at time when Hijbul Mujahidin is
declaring a cease fire, the rival militant outfits will not do some thing
nasty to play one-up in the game of gaining importance on the political
arena. This problem is related to the simmering Kashmir issue, and is not
a communal problem. Using this as a pretext VHP and Bajarang Dal have
incited anti-Minority violence and have also rampaged the Holy Daragah in
Ahmadabad. Their hatred campaign against minorities in this context, is
also condemnable. We appeal to fellow citizens not to fall prey to their
attempts to communalise the issue. Also the democratic solution of the
Kashmir problem is long overdue.

Sincerely Your

Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer
Aleque Padamsee
Arjun Dangle
Prof. Uday Mehta
Dr. Ram Puniyani
______

#2.

The Hindu
7 August 2000

Christians through RSS eye

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 6. Has the Christian community itself been ``staging''
the current wave of violence against its members to gain ``sympathy''?
Whatever the commonsense might suggest, the RSS clearly thinks that
Christians themselves have been behind the widespread attacks on fellow
Christians as part of a larger design to win converts by projecting
themselves as ``victims'' and therefore worthy of sympathy and perhaps
emulation.

The astounding claim is made in the latest issue of the RSS official
mouthpiece, Organiser, and lest anyone should doubt its authenticity it
is attributed to a ``former Catholic'' Mr. David Frawley whose basic
premise is that the ongoing anti-Christian campaign is nothing but a
clever ``missionary ploy''.

In a full-page article, Mr. Frawley holds the Christians themselves
responsible for the ``hostility'' they have attracted. ``One even
wonders if the Christians are staging some of these attacks to gain
sympathy, but certainly they are exaggerating them'', he says adding
that ``Christianity has had a long history of using victimisation to
promote conversion.''

Mr. Frawley repeatedly makes the point that the Christians' ``hostile''
attitude to other Indian religions is at the heart of their trouble, and
says if they want to be ``honoured and respected let them first proclaim
that Christianity is not the only true religion and Jesus is not the
only son of God. Let them say that Hinduisn, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism,
Zoroastrianism and the other Indian religions are as good as
Christianity and that members of these religions will not go to hell but
will gain immortality in the presence of God. ''

He doesn't say what would happen if they don't, but the message is clear
with the suggestion that if the Christians begin to ``honour Hinduism as
a valid religion, all ``Hindu- Christian hostility could easily come to
an end''.

Another pet argument is that Christians ``exaggerate minor incidents''
and project them as a national anti-Christian agenda. ``That a few
priests or ministers have been harmed in a country of one billion over a
period of several years is not surprising even if only considering
ordinary crimes like robbery'', the article says and concludes with the
warning that as long as Christians hold that theirs alone is the true
faith ``they should not be surprised if members of other religions may
not welcome their presence in the neighbourhood''.

Copyrights =A9 2000 The Hindu & Tribeca Internet Initiatives Inc.

______

#3

Basu's statement hits out at Babri mosque demolition

by Ajit Sahi, India Abroad News Service

New Delhi, Aug 6 - A piquant situation arose at the first-ever chief
ministers' conference on internal security called here yesterday when West
Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's statement included the Babri mosque
demolition of 1992 as an example of the threat posed by "communal and
fundamentalist elements" to "the secular fabric" of the country.

"Threats are being made even now to build the Ram temple at the site of the
mosque," noted Basu's statement as contained in a booklet. "As a result,
minority communalism is raising its ugly head," it said.

Called for a comprehensive overview of the law and order mechanism in
general and threats from seditious terrorism, the chief ministers'
conference was presided over by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Interestingly, Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani, whose brainchild the
conference is said to be, were two of the many leading politicians who had
associated themselves with the Hindu nationalist movement of the late 1980s
to build a Ram temple in place of the disputed Babri mosque.

Two days after the destruction, Vajpayee had admitted in Parilament that th=
e
act had shamed him. Criminal cases against Advani and other leaders of the
Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) are still continuing.

But Basu's statement was never read out at yesterday's conference. In fact,
no statement was read out as Advani told the delegates that their statement=
s
"would be taken as read" and, instead, asked them to get down to discussion=
s
straightaway.

West Bengal was represented by the chief secretary as Basu, 87, was unable
to attend. Only two weeks ago, the chief minister had suddenly taken ill
while in Delhi and had to be hospitalised for medical care till recovery.

In fact, chief ministers from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar
and Goa failed to attend the conference and sent their nominees.

Three other chief ministers, Himachal Pradesh's P. K. Dhumal, Punjab's
Prakash Singh Badal and Madhya Pradesh' Digvijay Singh left midway through
the conference.
______

#4.

The Asian Age
7 August 2000
Editorial

Terror in Surat

Surat's penchant for being in the news, albeit for the wrong reasons,
abides. Over the last few days, communal madness seems to have gripped
parts of the city, and last Friday night, the situation took a definite
turn for the worse with the State Reserve Police, a hark-back to the
hated Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) which had gained such
notoriety in several riots that broke out in the north during the
Eighties and Nineties, asserting itself in no uncertain terms.

The Gujarat version of the PAC is perceived by the Muslims as an agent
provocateur rather than a saviour; and just like the PAC was seen to be
more than just tangentially inclined against the minorities, so is the
State Reserve Police in Gujarat. It has been reported that on Friday
last, the scene of some violence in Muslim-dominated areas, the SRP men
apparently asked the Muslims to chant "Vande Mataram," if they wanted to
live in this country.

This is an almost exact rehash of the old Shiv Sena battle-cry, which
had been used to such deadly effect during the Mumbai Riots of 1992 and
1993 in the wake of the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. Some
Muslim youth said that they had been told that their rightful place was
Pakistan, and hence they should pack up their bags; this too is
strikingly reminiscent of Senaspeak.

Even as all this is happening, the Keshubhai government is yet to make a
decisive move to suggest that it means business, with the result that
Surat's periodic tryst with misfortune is far from over. It is no doubt
important to know members of which community instigate a riot and who
happens to be the worse hit in the fallout of such conflagrations.

But those issues can be taken up later rather in the course of a given
riot situation, and Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya, who has been to
Gujarat for a first hand assessment of the situation, will do well to
instruct his department to do the fire fighting first before the
government sets up an inquiry which it most probably will soon after the
hostilities are over.

But the situation has to be brought back to normal first, and with the
State Reserve Police apparently not up to the aforementioned task, it
should be asked to go back to the lines. If a police or paramilitary
unit gets identified with a particular community, not only is its
objectivity immediately tarnished; also blunted in the process is its
effectiveness as a force that can combat the mobs who exemplify rioting.

In several recorded instances in the past, in places such as Meerut,
Maliana, Moradabad and so on, there was a thin line of distinction, if
at all there was any in the first place, between these units and the
avowedly communal mobs. There is another reason why Surat must be
brought back to normal on a war-footing; in recent months, even as
Gujarat in general and its southern parts in particular have seen a rise
in anti-Christian assertions, one missing factor was Hindu-Muslim
tension.

It is therefore of utmost import that what is happening in Surat is
checked forthwith, lest the situation goes utterly out of control. At a
given level, what is happening in Surat is also an attempt by a section
of the city's business community to use the communal smokescreen to
usurp the thriving small scale handloom and powerloom sector. This too
is by now a tried and tested "method" which the unscrupulous employ
during riot-like situations. All said and done, normalcy should be
restored to the face of Surat, come what may.

______

#5.

The Statesman
7 August 2000
Op-Ed.

We the Hindus

BY ND BATRA

WHEN a distinguished journalist like MV Kamath writes about the
degradation of Hinduism (The Sunday Statesman, 9 July), India should
listen up. There is a widespread misconception among many people abroad
that Hinduism is nothing but a collection of castes. But when they
ponder how a caste-ridden society could have given birth to some of the
most compassionate and civilized human beings of the 20th century,
Gandhi, Tagore, Nehru, for example, they wonder if there is a deeper
truth about Hinduism. The profound philosophical foundation and the
eternal verities of Hinduism have enabled it to flourish for the last
5000 years as an unbroken continuous civilization, in spite of invasions
and cultural domination. Mr Kamath and other intellectuals of India need
not worry about Hinduism. Like the Jews, we the Hindus would be always
there. Like the Hindus, the Jewish people too have been much maligned
and persecuted in the past, but their struggles have by and large
defined the 20th century.
Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, along with Mahatma Gandhi,
have been among the most admired people, and their ideas have shaped the
century. What would the world be without the Jews and the Hindus, two of
the most ancient, original and creative people on the earth?
Mr Kamath laments that the Sangh Parivar, an umbrella organisation of
which the extremist group Bajrang Dal is a constituent, has been accused
of "bringing disgrace on the country." He forgets that BJP and its
allies are in power in New Delhi. Law and order is their paramount
responsibility. When churches are burned down, mosques are demolished
and Dalits butchered, where should one go and complain? I still feel
horrified when I think about the Rev. Graham Staines and his two
teenager boys being roasted while asleep, when their van was set on
fire.
Are we the Hindus taking revenge against history because 500 years ago
some misguided Christian missionaries in Goa might have burned some
Hindus as heretics? The execution and burning of heretics from Joan of
Arc to the witches of Salem was a barbaric medieval custom, of which Goa
burnings might have been a similar unfortunate occurrence. But we the
Hindus cannot set right historical wrongs committed against us by
tolerating atrocities against minorities today at the dawn of the new
millennium. It is disgraceful to say that "the BJP cannot possibly have
any control over, say, the Bajrang Dal." Who is running the country, Mr
Kamath?
When the BJP and its allies came to power at the centre, they should
have ceased to be partisans, because they are the government. When the
government cannot offer security, the people take law and order into
their hands, as it is happening in Bihar. There is no gainsaying the
fact that not only Christians but also other communities, including the
Hindus, are the victims of sectarian violence in India. But think again.
The contribution of Indian Christians, like that of the Parsis, to
society is totally disproportionate to their miniscule number. They run
some of the best schools and colleges in India, and there is no
corporation, civil service and institution, including the military,
where you wouldn't find distinguished Carmelites,
Xavierites,Stephanians, or other missionary school kids.
The most amazing grace the Christian missionaries have brought to India
is in their compassion for the utterly hopeless. Two of the most dreaded
diseases in India have been tuberculosis and leprosy. Christian
missionaries have been taking care of them for us - we the Hindus, who
wouldn't go near them. Mother Teresa did not come to India to convert
people to Christianity.
She came to take care of the people who we the Hindus throw into the
gutter. So did the Australian missionary, the Rev. Staines, who ran a
leprosy hospital in Orissa.
We the Hindus may have tolerance but we don't love enough to take care
of others. I don't mean to insult the "aroused Hindu psyche," as Mr
Kamath calls it, but I do hope that the leaders would re-direct this
tremendous source into constructive channels, much as the Chinese
leaders are doing, to make the nation a world economic super power.
Mr Kamath fears that India is being blackmailed: "Such is the power of
the Christian diaspora that, according to the Observer (30 June), at
least four countries - Norway, Sweden, France and the USA - have
reportedly cautioned the Indian government unofficially that if it does
not take immediate "confidence-building measures" among the Christian
community in the country, they might have to "cut off all forms of aid."
I'm afraid Mr Kamath has misunderstood their intentions. If there were
an outburst of violence against the Muslims, Sikhs, Tibetans or Parsis
in India, the West would have raised the same serious human rights
concerns. Let's not forget that western Europe and the USA went out of
the way to protect the Muslims of Kosovo and Bosnia.
After the fall of Communism and dissipation of the Soviet Union, human
rights protection has become a worldwide mission for the USA and western
Europe. The Holocaust haunts the West. It could happen anywhere, as it
happened in Cambodia under Pol Pot. Hundreds of thousands of illegal
immigrants, most of them non-Christians, have been pouring into western
Europe. They not only receive food and shelter but also free legal aid
to protect their human rights and civil liberties. Human rights are the
West's new religion.
More important than foreign aid is the foreign direct investment, which
depends, among other factors, on law and order in the country. If
temples, mosques and churches are desecrated and people shrink in fear,
the investors too would shrink in fear. China is a "darling of foreign
investors," as The New York Times put it, partly because law and order
is much better in China than in India. There is a high correlation
between law and order and economic growth. If the Sangh Parivar wants to
quicken the pace of economic growth, from the present modest rate of 6
per cent to 8-9 per cent, to lift 300 million people above the poverty
line, it has to make India a safe place to live, work and worship for
everybody.
Something makes millions of people like me comfortable in the USA, an
overwhelming Christian country. Wouldn't you like India to be such a
loving country?
Mr Kamath says, "We want a peaceful India, not a minority religion at
war with the majority under the guise of religious freedom, and
constitutional guarantees." I believe that we the Hindus need a new
vision for India: An open society totally committed to civil liberties,
a free marketplace of ideas, where our sons and daughters would be
judged - to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr, a follower of Mahatma
Gandhi - not by their caste and religion, but by the strength of their
character.
(ND Batra is Professor of Communications, Norwich University, Vermont)

______

#6.

The Hindustan Times
7 August 2000
Op-Ed.

The Swastika brigade

By Amulya Ganguli

GEORGE SPEIGHT has failed again, this time as a 'nationalist'. Earlier,
he had failed as a businessman. But notwithstanding his failures, he has
succeeded in one respect. He has made Fiji turn its back on a
multiracial polity.

Outside the theocratic Muslim world, Speight in Fiji, Jorg Haider in
Austria and the RSS-led Sangh parivar in India, along with the Shiv
Sena, remain the four ultra-right, xenophobic individuals and
organisations with the ability to influence the national politics of
their countries. There are other far right outfits, like the neo-Nazis
of Europe and the white supremacists (Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation) of the
US, but they are very much on the fringes of national politics.

Of the four, Haider is the weakest presumably because Europe's
experience of fascism in the Thirties and Forties has made the continent
wary of strident nationalism. Hence, Haider's virtual pariah status.
Speight, on the other hand, is on a stronger wicket because Fiji is in
the early stages of national development when the concepts of democracy
and individual rights are somewhat hazy. Ideally, it would like to
return to the primitive tribal chieftainship of the pre-colonial period,
abandoning democracy and free elections altogether. The only check on
such a reversion is provided by the refusal of the democratic world to
accept a step backwards in time.

As an American historian, Arthur Schlesinger, said in another context,
the "great unifying Western ideas" today are those of individual
freedom, political democracy and human rights. Unless these benchmarks
are observed, a country might face ostracism.

However, it is only after the end of the Cold War that these ideals have
gained prominence. It is a safe bet that if Speight had spouted
anti-communism in the days when the Soviet Union was still around, his
negation of political democracy and human rights would not have bothered
the West. South Africa, whose racial policies of the apartheid period
resembles those favoured by Speight, is an example of how the US and the
Western world could overlook such transgressions of individual freedom
if the country concerned paid lip-service to anti-communism.

But that was then. Now there is little doubt that ultra-nationalism is
disliked by the West. Yet, the fact that such atavistic sentiments have
not only reared their heads in widely separated parts of the world like
Austria, Fiji and India but also seem to be thriving must be a cause for
concern. What is more, they have appeared in the absence of any major
economic or political cause and without the help of a charismatic
leader.

It is known that fascism received a boost in Europe in the Thirties
because of the harsh Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depression, the
Bolshevik revolution which created an inordinate fear about communism,
the death of Stresemann under whom conditions in the Weimar republic
were improving, and, perhaps most important, Hitler's oratorical skills.
It was a period of traumatic events which made ordinary people turn
towards the simplistic solutions offered by the fascists.

Nothing remotely so unsettling can explain the headway made by Haider
and Speight. In a way, therefore, their xenophobia is even more
deep-rooted than the hatred fomented against Jews by the Nazis in
Hitler's Germany. That campaign was conducted against the background of
Germany's suffering after World War I. Today's situation is completely
different in Austria and Fiji. Both are peaceful and reasonably
prosperous. And yet it has been possible for Haider and Speight to stir
up racial animosity against immigrants to such an extent that it has
given the world a cause for worry.

Evidently, racism remains a potent factor, lying dormant within
communities but flaring up at times to spark off a civil war. All
countries will have to beware of such eruptions unless they want to meet
the fate of Sri Lanka. The essence of such vicious policies directed
against a section of the population is summed up by Hitler's comment,
"To us state and race are one."

It is a thesis which is shared by all xenophobes. Had Speight been an
educated person, he could have buttressed his own case by citing
Savarkar's thesis on Indian nationhood. Just as Haider wants Austria to
be only for Austrians and Speight wants Fiji only for ethnic Melanesians
by reducing all other racial groups to the status of second class
citizens, Savarkar's view was that India was the homeland of only Hindus
since it was both a punyabhu (holy land) and pitribhu (fatherland) for
them. For the Muslims and Christians, it may be a pitribhu but not a
punyabhu for their holy places are elsewhere - in Mecca or Rome.

This identification of race with state, as Hitler said, is the driving
force behind the Sangh parivar's Hindu rashtra. If the parivar is unable
to implement its plans, it is because of the fortunate accident of the
Indian independence movement having been led by such uniquely
liberal-minded personalities like Gandhi and Nehru. It is because they
and their equally broad-minded contemporaries regarded Indian nationhood
as the melting pot of various racial, religious and linguistic groups,
with the country belonging to all and not only to Hindus, that the
Indian Constitution evolved as a document endorsing Indian pluralism.

It is the country's multicultural tradition which is the bulwark against
the Sangh parivar's sectarianism. But it has to be remembered that the
latter's recent gains, evident in the BJP moving within a few years from
the political periphery to the centre stage, suggest that divisive
ideals have the capacity to influence sections of the population.

The danger may not be as great as in Fiji which has no liberal tradition
or the background of an independence movement inspired by a sense of
unity among all communities. But it will not do to forget that the
subcontinent has experienced two partitions as a result of religious and
linguistic sentiments and, therefore, cannot be complacent about
campaigns casting aspersions on the patriotism of different groups
simply because their religions are different from the one followed by
the majority.

[...]

It is the invidious distinction between citizens on the grounds of race
and religion favoured by the xenophobes which undermines a country's
democratic system and prepares the ground for civil strife. India's deep
democratic roots preclude such a possibility. But one cannot be too
careful.

______________________________________________
South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch (SACW) is an
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run by South Asia Citizens Web (http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex)
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[Disclaimer :
Opinions carried in the dispatches are not representative
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