[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 5 Aug. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

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

#1. Pakistan: Trafficking & Sale of Bangladeshi & Burmese Women
#2. On Peace in Kashmir an opinion from Pakistan
#3. Why doesnt India's PM respond to overtures by the Pakistani counterpart
#4. Hindutva At Play: An interview with Arvind Rajagopal

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#1.

[The Date for the below article is missing !]

The below Article was published in Frontier Post, Peshawar, Pakistan

WOMEN SOLD LIKE ANIMALS

By Ahmar Mustikhan

Sale of women is taking place on a mass scale in Pakistan, and at least one
journalist who bared the faces of those involved in the heinous crime has
been murdered. The organisations dealing with human rights also say that
police have implicated innocent persons in the journalist's murder case to
protect the real culprits.

Human traffickers bring destitute Bangladeshi and Burmese women into
Pakistan on the promise of getting them decent jobs, but once here they are
sold to third parties, mostly for the purpose of prostitution. These women
are escorted all the way through India, some distances on foot, to reach
Pakistan.

One such thriving market is in the remote town of Thar, bordering Indian
Rajasthan, where at least one former minister and two members of the
disbanded parliament maintain huge stakes in the women-selling business.

According to Shaheen Burney in the district of Thar, women were being sold
in a market much in the way that animals are sold in a livestock market
"where buyers literally scan and examine the women before paying their
prices humiliating, molesting and sexually harassing these unfortunate
women in the open market."The women include those abducted from the
province of Punjab. According to an NGO chief, once their sexual utility
was over for one buyer, these victim women were resold to subsequent buyers=
.

"These women are compelled to live a miserable and humiliating life
afterwards, along with their illegitimate children, as those who bought
them usually resell them when they are no longer required."Lawyers for
human rights and legal aid chief Zia Awan said the sale of women was not
restricted to Thar alone.

"Visit any Bengali or Burmese slum in Karachi and you can buy women
there," he said. Nearly half of Karachi's 12 million people live in slum
areas, and according to government statistics, 2.5 million of them are
illegal aliens.

Awan said thousands of women are being sold in the underworld for the
purpose of either being a prostitute or a domestic servant for life. He
says that there is a tradition of selling women in the garb of "bride
money" in some tribal belts of Pakistan, where a man could buy a girl
one-third his age after paying the parents the money they want. The sale of
women also has an ominous international dimension.

"Innocent women who are sold in the underworld are also being used to
carry drugs to foreign destinations," Zia said. Zia said non-governmental
organisations working in the fields of women's and children's rights in
south Asia have coalesced to form a network called Resistance, and a draft
is awaiting signature by the governments of the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation. SAARC comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal,
Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

"This is a major breakthrough, as the SAARC government's signature would
mean the states acknowledge for the first time that trafficking of women
and children was a cross border problem that knows no frontiers in South
Asia," said Zia. Resistance has joined hands with SANFEC (South Asian
Network for Food, Ecology and Culture), said Zia, as the sale and
trafficking of women and children is directly linked also to the issue of
food sovereignty.

"Studies have shown that farmers driven to despair, either because of
mechanisation of agriculture, use of bio-technology or any natural
disaster, are forced to sell their women and children to save themselves
from starving to death," Zia explained.

The global Human Rights Watch has an ongoing campaign against the
business, saying, "Trafficking in persons =97 the illegal and highly
profitable recruitment, transport or sale of human beings for the purpose
of exploiting their labour =97 is a slavery-like practice that must be
eliminated."

Frontier Post, Pakistan

______

#2.

TFT
4 August 2000
Editorial

NEXT MOVE, INDIA

The Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) has offered a "conditional" ceasefire" to
India: hold your fire and then hold unconditional talks with Pakistan,
HM and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) on the future of
Kashmir and on peace in the region. On the other side, the BJP
government is ready to talk to the HM and the APHC but not to Pakistan.
Also, it insists that the talks with the two Kashmiri parties must be
within the framework of the Indian constitution.

Not everyone in India agrees with the BJP's initial response. Editorials
in leading English-language newspapers in India have advised the BJP not
to belabour the constitutionality or otherwise of the proposed exercise.
In fact, the Congress-I, India's leading opposition party, has
recommended that talks with Pakistan should be initiated. Even Mr Farooq
Abdullah in Srinagar has now supported the idea of an Indo-Pakistan
dialogue.

On the face of it, this seems to suggest that there is some agreeable
change in the ground reality in Kashmir. Coupled with General Pervez
Musharraf's unilateral ceasefire along the LoC, and his call for a
resumption of the peace dialogue with India, this is a significant
development. If the BJP government ignores or scuttles this diplomatic
opening, it may find itself isolated in India and censured abroad.
Indeed, the consequences of missing the bus on this occasion might be
most unpleasant.

If the Indian government thinks that the change is owed to weakness in
Pakistan, and that New Delhi can reap further unilateral dividends by
simply waiting it out, it should think again. If the ceasefire offer is
withdrawn, India is bound to face a far more intractable situation on
the ground than it has experienced so far. As it is, its rejectionist
attitude has already caused its client government in Srinagar led by
Farooq Abdullah, to bend in favour of the APHC because the march of
events is bringing the divided forces of Kashmir together again - APHC
leader Mirwaiz Farooq's visit to the house of chief minister Farooq
Abdullah to condole the death of the latter's mother is a pointer in
this direction. Therefore the BJP, which kicked off the process by
releasing several APHC leaders and asking for an abatement in
"cross-border terrorism", is now morally bound to move forward rather
than recoil to the dark days of Governor's Raj simply to leash Farooq
Abdullah.

Is the change brought about by HM's ceasefire more far-reaching than the
orthodox forces on both sides of the border realise? In Pakistan the
most die-hard advocates of jehad concede that HM is responsible for 60
percent of the Kashmir jehad and remains the mainstay of resistance
inside Held Kashmir. This accounts for the support its ceasefire
decision has been able to enlist from Mr Salahuddin, the HM chief based
in Pakistan, despite the outrage among the other more radical outfits.
Furthermore, the new leader of the APHC, Mr Gani Bhatt, has inclined to
the stance taken by HM, followed by his Muslim Conference counterpart in
Azad Kashmnir, the shrewd Sardar Abdul Qayyum. These facts lead to the
conclusion that the stage might be more thoroughly set for a change in
the status quo than many observers and activists realise. But how
optimistic should one be?

The government of Pakistan has acted wisely by declaring that it will
not interfere in the politics and policies of the jehadi forces in
Kashmir. At any rate, it is difficult to imagine how, if the government
of Pakistan was not behind the move, it could have actually rejected the
HM ceasefire and then expected to remote-control 60 percent of the jehad
from Islamabad. Interestingly enough, in an interview to TFT, Pakistan's
Jama'at-i Islami leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, has rejected the extreme
policy prescription advocated and adopted by some leaders of the jehadi
organisations. Although he too has rejected the HM ceasefire, his stance
has become less intense and more cautious. Meanwhile, the extremist
Deobandi outfit, Harkatul Mujahideen, has split, clearing the way to
some extent for the return of the non-sectarian and relatively moderate
Jama'at-i Islami to the fore.

If Pakistan is not yet ready to effect a change in its policy vis-a-vis
Afghanistan by controlling terrorism at home, the implied pledge by
General Pervez Musharraf to lower the temperature in Held Kashmir has
certainly been fulfilled. That explains why the CP(M) and the Congress-I
in India have responded by asking Indian prime minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee to talk to Pakistan even if that means talking to its military
ruler.

Pakistan has always tended to imitate India and thereby harmed itself in
the past. But what if this Pakistani-initiated move leaves India
stranded on the back-foot? In the event, even if the world cannot bring
itself to punish India, it can certainly offer some rewards to Pakistan,
including bailout funds for Pakistan's blighted economy.

The international community should jump into the breach offered by the
HM ceasefire and compel India to see the wisdom of departing from old,
unworkable policies. But it would be tragic if this window of
opportunity is lost in the cynical world of cold-war strategists on both
sides. .

______

#3

Indian Express
5 August 2000
Editorial

KULDIP NAYAR WAITS FOR PM'S RESPONSE TO MUSHARRAF'S SIX-MONTH CEASEFIRE
OFFER

by NEERJA CHOWDHURY

NEW DELHI, AUG 4: The possibility of a meeting between Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan Chief Executive Pervez Musharraf in
New York in September is very much there.

Given the international pressure for India and Pakistan to resume their
dialogue which is necessary for a breakthrough on Kashmir, sources do
not rule out a scenario in which the two leaders find themselves sitting
next to each other at the millennium luncheon which will be hosted on
the opening day of the United Nations General Assembly by the Secretary
General. After the initial thaw, a more substantive meeting could be set
up between the two leaders. Sources say moves are on in New Delhi,
Washington and Islamabad to get this meeting through.

For the moment, however, the Government is non-committal. The Prime
Minister parried a question on the subject today. When questioned by The
Indian Express in Parliament whether he planned to meet Musharraf during
his forthcoming visit to the US, he evaded it by joking: ``Yeh to bahut
chhota sawal pooch liya.'' (``You've raised a very minor issue.'')

Vajpayee has also not responded to the peace offer brought by Rajya
Sabha MP Kuldip Nayar from Musharraf four weeks ago. Nor has he turned
it down. Musharraf had agreed to a ceasefire on the border for six
months, during which all issues could be taken up for discussion,
including Kashmir, provided India did the same. Nayar conveyed the offer
to the Prime Minister and Vajpayee promised to get back to him.

Last week Nayar met the Prime Minister and reiterated the offer. The
Prime Minister gave him the same reply.

Alluding to it today in the Rajya Sabha, Nayar said: ``Has the Prime
Minister not come back to me because I am not from the BJP and my name
is not R K Mishra?''

Nayar told The Indian Express, when questioned about his meeting with
Musharraf: ``When I was in Pakistan six weeks ago, I met General
Musharraf.I told him that before India could resume a dialogue with
Pakistan, it must stop cross-border terrorism. Musharraf said, `Yes, I
know.' I suggested to him let there be a ceasefire or cessation of
hostilities for six months. That will mean that no guns will boom on the
LOC or the international border, and that Pakistan will not send any
mililtants across the border, that militants in the control of Pakistan
will lay down their arms and that the ISI action would be stopped. We
would also do the same, I told him.

``If you agree to this, I'll go back and talk to my Prime Minister. He
said, `I agree.' He did say that all militants were not under the
control of Pakistan. I said I would also talk to the Hurriyat people.
When we were parting, I asked him again, `You do agree?' He replied, `I
agree. I'll await your reply.'

``On my return, I went to Srinagar with the Standing Committee on Home
Affairs. There the Prime Minister had called me on the phone one night.
I told him about Musharraf's offer. He said, `I'll get back to you.'

``A few days after the Parliament session started, I met the Prime
Minister. I told him, I know we are hurt because of Kargil, coming as it
did after the bus diplomacy, and one feels diffident about trusting
Pakistan. But let's call their bluff. During the six months ceasefire we
could talk about all the outstanding problems including Kashmir. Let's
start by creating an atmosphere of peace and talking. But he has not
come back to me yet.''

Copyright =A9 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd
______

#4.

Frontline
Volume 17 - Issue 16, August 5 - 18, 2000
INTERVIEW

HINDUTVA AT PLAY

Arvind Rajagopal graduated from Madras University and from the School of
Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. Since 1998, he is
an Associate Professor at New York University.

In an interview with Darryl D'Monte in Mumbai recently, Arvind Rajgopal
spoke about his forthcoming book, Politics after Television: Hindu
Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Indian Public (Cambridge University
Press, New York, January 2001). The book examines the impact of the
screening of the Ramayan serial on Doordarshan in the late 1980s on
Indian society.

T.A. HAFEEZ

In 1992, he co-authored Mapping Hegemony: CBS Coverage of the United
Mineworkers' Strike 1977-78. The title refers to a strike which ushered
in the Reagan era and underlines Rajagopal's analysis of the mass media
as an instrument for fashioning po litical participation based on
consumer choice.

In the 1990s, Rajagopal studied the interface between three seemingly
disparate elements: economic liberalisation, the rise of Hindu
fundamentalism and the role of the mass media. Just as the market treats
society as a single, undifferentiated and homoge neous entity, the
forces of Hindutva see the Indian people as a vast mass which is waiting
to find, or rediscover, its common culture and identity. The catalyst in
the process was television. Although Ramanand Sagar's epic was screened
by Doordarshan, it spawned several variants in regional languages as the
state monopoly over television was withdrawn. The telecast of the
Ramayan was the precursor of the Ram Janambhoomi movement which in turn
saw the ascendancy of the BJP to the status of the sin gle largest
party. Rajagopal also points to the difference in the way the regional
language media and the English language press treated the epic.
Currently, Rajagopal is studying how Indian society is changing with the
penetration of market forces into new areas of public life.

What arguments or events does your book seek to explain?

In January 1987, the Indian government began broadcasting a Hindu epic
in serial form, the Ramayan, to nationwide audiences on a regular basis.
This violated a decades-old taboo on religious partisanship, and Hindu
nationalists made the most of th e opportunity. What resulted was
perhaps the largest campaign in post-Independence times, irrevocably
changing the complexion of Indian politics. The telecast of a religious
epic to popular acclaim created the sense of a nation coming together,
seeming t o confirm the idea of Hindu awakening. But if audiences
thought they were harking back to a golden age, key Hindu nationalist
leaders were embracing the prospects of neo-liberalism and
globalisation. Eventually what became clear was that the nation was f
irst and foremost a coalition of contending castes, creeds, and classes,
even if Hindu nationalists came to power. In my book, I explain how
these very different events can be understood in terms of a political
terrain changed by the advent of television and liberalisation. Hence,
Politics After Television.

Why the focus on media? What is the justification for a book like this
appearing at this time, so long after the events?

It is generally acknowledged that the introduction of national
television, and the televising of the Hindu epics in particular, have
led to irreversible changes in Indian society. Most people agree that
the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party on the one h and, and the spread
of liberalisation on the other, are both linked to the new prominence of
the media. In my book I have tried to understand precisely how these
three factors are related. I have approached this topic through the
event of the Ramayan< /I> serial.

Battle scenes in a tele-epic were seen as models for Hindu militancy,
and at the same time, the serial itself began to echo themes from the
movement. A new historical conjuncture was in formation. There was, for
a while, the feeling of a great clarity ab out the character and causes
of social problems and the nature of their solution. What drew little
attention, in the process, was the prominence of the media itself. As
facilitator rather than prime mover, television enabled a new order of
social connect ivity. For the first time there was a visual medium that
extended across the country, and stood for the nation, in some sense.

We have begun to take for granted the presence of Hindu imagery in
public life, and the association of such themes with majority political
power. But it was in this period (roughly, 1987-93) that it took shape.
A new public language emerged, one that was more intimate to a section
of the population and intimidating to the rest. It resonated with themes
of collective empowerment, albeit in ominous ways. This was of course
not simply owing to the broadcast of some television programmes. To
attribute causa lity to television in this way does little more than
confirm our own fascination with its power. What was important was that
the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign echoed some of the serial's key themes, and
went on to offer both a socio-political critique and a s olution,
however limited these were. And while television created the awareness,
it was the press that most helped advance the movement's cause.
Specifically, it was the cultural differences between the Hindi and the
English press, cultivated and manipul ated by the BJP, that created both
sympathy for the movement, and the friction necessary for its ascent.

Although the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign harked back to a putatively golden
age, it was also an attempt to bring the spheres of economy, culture and
politics into closer alignment with each other. Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) leaders described it as a way of bringing the uneducated
masses into the national mainstream, and of instilling the discipline
necessary for liberalisation. Now, liberalisation is conventionally
understood by the Left as a transfer of power to the rich, and by the
Right as democr atisation. The Right's view is exaggerated, but should
not be completely dismissed. In fact, the BJP used Hindutva to expand
political participation at the expense of minorities, to extend its
base, while carrying out economic reforms that reduced the pr otections
available to the poor.

We tend to look for a linear relationship between events such as the
serialisation of the Ramayana epic and the rise of Hindu nationalism,
but you clearly do not point to a direct cause and effect?

Causal models may be linear, but real historical processes tend to be
non-linear. Unless we can detail what actually happened, we may
exaggerate the causal force of one element, which is arbitrarily
designated as the first element in the chain of events. The Ramayan
serial was initiated by a professedly leftist Secretary of the
Information and Broadcasting Ministry, S.S. Gill. Apparently Rajiv
Gandhi expressed reservations about the departure from a secular policy,
but Gill reassured him saying t his was a national epic. Once the serial
started drawing mass audiences, that was considered ample answer to
critics. You had the Congress government broadcasting the serial in the
backdrop of certain happenings such as the Muslim Women's bill, drawn up
after the Shah Bano case, and the opening of the Babri Masjid in 1986.
Once the Congress realised that the serial was a success, it sought to
make political capital out of it. But eventually it was the BJP that was
able to profit by it - their party's 'b rand identification' with it was
stronger and they had fewer inhibitions about playing the Hindu card.

In the serial itself, there were plenty of battle scenes, but for the
most part, it was extremely slow and devotional in emphasis. If you
talked to viewers, what they spoke about most often had to do with the
virtues of Ram Rajya, as they saw it - the ki nd of feelings between a
king and his subjects, between father and son and so on - that were
thought to have existed before and had now vanished. It was very much
harking back to a lost utopia. If it was originally meant to be cultural
or political propa ganda, its impact was precisely the opposite: it
served to remind people of all the drawbacks of today's age. This was
another interruption in any straight line of causality. It was the BJP
that was able to yoke this simmering discontent to their own pol itical
criticism of the Congress party and the Babri Masjid issue.

Was the discontent with what you term the 'developmentalist' state,
established through the Nehruvian consensus, encapsulated in the BJP's
critique of its secularist policies?

Yes, all these elements came together. The perceived failure of the
state to protect Hindu culture was of a piece with its failure to
liberate market forces. The repressed energy of society, which was
Hinduism, was equated with the repressed energy of en trepreneurial
forces under the Nehruvian state.

Both these were somehow going to be released simultaneously in an
outburst of Hindu creativity and prosperity. It is by no means
coincidental that the BJP draws the bulk of its support from trading and
smaller industrial classes. In the Gujarat Navnirman movement which led
up to the Emergency, they were at the forefront.

It was about the time of the serialisation that the BJP began to be
perceived by the English-language press and by big business as a likely
replacement for the Congress. This involved a departure from its own
traditional base of the trading classes, and now one can see some of
that conflict, where these segments are not satisfied while certain
others are. There was the idea that the BJP could come to power as a
strong nationalist party to undertake ruthless action of the kind the
Congress was never able to. Suddenly the BJP became the party of
liberalisation, although until a few years earlier it had no economic
policy except to follow in the wake of the Congress itself - Gandhian
socialism, planned economy, and so on. It has not been appreciated suffi
ciently why it is that the BJP alone of all the parties, has insisted on
commemorating the Emergency. They gained the most from it by far. The
RSS at this time became the organisation of the national opposition,
thanks in part to Jayaprakash Narayan. For the first time, they were
able to transcend their narrow base and go beyond the stultifying
routine of shakha. With most national leaders in jail, they opened
themselves to popular forces, and even tasted the fruits of their
endeavours, in 1977. The period of the Emergency is quite critical in
understanding how the Hindu Right has changed, but it has barely been s
tudied. An effective national rallying theme was realised again with Ram
Janmabhoomi, which brought a range of issues and groups toge ther. Once
again, they were able to go far beyond their traditional trader class
base, winning the confidence of sections of big business and the urban
middle classes as well. In fact, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs)
formed the majority of the kar seva ks, pointing to the BJP's success in
using Hindu themes while going beyond their previous bania base. It was
in the wake of the BJP's rise that the lower castes began to assert
themselves decisively, changing the balance of power in northern India.
Event ually, the chief legacy of the Hindu nationalists may have been
not upper caste domination so much as the introduction of methods that
helped politicise such domination. What emerged was an era of more
competitive politics, and more fluid electoral align ments and the
realisation that no single party could any longer dominate the country.
The BJP's attempt to establish sovereignty thus resulted, paradoxically,
in the implosion of its claims about an undivided Hindu national family.
I suggest that if we d o not understand the mechanisms through which the
BJP advanced, namely through markets and the media, we cannot understand
this paradoxical fallout.

So let us get back to the media. The market began to become liberalised
after 1985 and more decisively since 1991. The serialisation of the epic
began when the media was state-controlled but television was freed later
on. Was there a convergence of t hese two forces?

The process began with the broadcast of the Asian Games in 1982 and
continued with commercially sponsored serials. S.S. Gill, who tried to
introduce developmental soap operas, brought in Hum Log; he did not want
to abandon the government's mission of information and education. But
the experiment was an utter flop because the sponsors did not want to
underwrite such things. The pro-social aspect was jettisoned and it was
continued as a family sit-com. The developmental component was carried
over into the mythological serials, where it found its most lasting desi
vehicle. Essentially what Ramanand Sagar did was to reformulate the
Ramayan serial as a kind of parable about the nation state, projected
back into the distant past. India was seen as always having
pro-development rulers who were uplifting the lower castes, women in
distress and so on. It endorsed the idealised view of Ram Rajya. Vedic
sacrifices and rituals were s hown as scientific research and
experiments undertaken for national defence. The rishis' weapons were
described as nuclear missiles used for the benefit of the nation state.
Many ideas about the modern national security state were carried back in
time.

>From my own interviews with the serial's viewers, this description of
Hindu society was considered plausible. Here was Hindu modernity taking
shape, whose fulfilment was being prevented by various latter-day
avatars of the rakshasas - mainly politicians. The Ramayan serial was
brought out at an extremely propitious time: there was state monopoly of
television, one national channel. Everybody watched that or nothing
else. During this smal l window of opportunity, this experimentation
took place which succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of its
progenitors. The sense of a Hindu civilisation which could be readied
for a modern age came to inhabit the intimate spaces of daily life, with
familiar ideas people could engage with. That a political party could
take it up as a national campaign seemed a natural progression.
Something very important happened in the course of this media
development, once liberalisation occurred and state monop oly over TV
was no longer maintained. You had the regularisationof the format of the
mythological soap opera, which then branches off into regional channels
- you have Tamil, Telugu variants. A new genre was carved out, which had
not existed before, whic h forms a spectrum in the political and
cultural life of the country. This has survived despite liberalisation.

You do not see any opposition between liberalisation, which represents
modernisation and westernisation, and this kind of regression?

Opposition, contradiction and paradox are all politically creative
energies that can be utilised. In fact, it is the lack of contradiction
that would be worrisome for those who wish to mobilise popular energies.
After all, what on earth did the demolitio n of a 16th century monument
have to do with going into the 21st century? The Hindu nationalist party
never lost sight of the fact that its audience was highly divided and
had to be addressed in different languages and intonations. Advani,
addressing vil lages, would say: "Ram Janambhoomi is not a political
matter, it is religious; we want to restore the temple of Ram to its
former glory." In the capital, he would say: "I am not a religious man,
this is entirely a political issue; I am a secular person i n fact.
There has been a misunderstanding of the concept of secularism and this
is what we wish to correct." Astonishingly, the press never caught him
out. It says a great deal about the kind of news routines that had been
established, the editorial prac tices specifically in the English
language press, and the mutual misunderstanding in the relationship
between it and the vernacular press. This was accurately perceived and
utilised by the BJP.

Were some of the visual symbols used in the serials carried forward in
the rath yatra?

When the shila yatras were carried out, kar sevaks would actually dress
like Ram and Lakshman in the TV serial. Party meetings would have
painted backdrops with this iconography. The rath yatra itself resembled
the kind of chariot we saw on TV. Repeatedl y, Viswa Hindu Parishad
(VHP) and BJP leaders like Ashok Singhal thanked Ramanand Sagar, who
appeared at VHP conclaves. Interestingly, Gill revealed that Sagar and
he were part of the same intellectual circle in Lahore. Sagar was seen
to be secular and t hat was why he gave him the brief. Gill was critical
of the serial and blamed political parties for making capital out of it.

There were some contentious reformulations in the serial which were
clearly political. For instance, Ram carries around a clod of earth - we
do not see this till way into the serial. At Chitrakoot, he suddenly
pulls this bundle out of his waistband and p laces it on the mantlepiece
in his hut and prays to it, hailing the sacred soil of the Janambhoomi.
This is not found in Valmiki or Tulsidas. This is a solitary prayer that
he enacts, which is highly unusual because all the rest are group
rituals. This i s something between Ram and his birthplace, echoing the
new individualist imagery and rhetoric that the VHP crafted with a
specific end in mind: that only by plucking Ram out of the pantheon he
belongs to can he inspire others to follow his individual pa th. These
interpolations clearly echoed the VHP's campaign. You had Morari Bapu
(the well-known religious speaker), in the videotapes of the serial at
any rate, saying things like: "Pichhle zamana me, yudh me dharm tha; aur
aaj kal, dharm me yudh aa g aya" (In the old era, religion entered war;
now war has entered religion). He would repeat this three or four times,
without further elaboration. This seemed to resonate with the idea that
the Hindu religion was at war with Islam. There were various things in
the serial which seemed to reiterate the themes of the VHP's campaigns.

>From the Ramayan television serial.

Do you see a geographical divide in the kind of Hindu mobilisation that
has taken place? The hard core of the Ram Janambhoomi movement was
largely restricted to northern and western India, exempting the south?

There were a large number of kar sevaks from Andhra at Ayodhya. The
Ramayan serial was the first to achieve record viewership across the
country, cutting across language and regional divides. The bulk of the
mobilisation did happen in the cow-belt . But I think the Ramayan serial
and others that followed it laid the basis for the kind of mobilisation
that the BJP has been able to achieve today. In 1994, for instance,
there was a mahila sammelan in Delhi which had tens of thousands of
partic ipants from southern India as well.

Muslim viewers of the serial whom I interviewed would say that it is
just entertainment - natak. They would point to inconsistencies in the
story. Some also said: "Look at Ram Rajya and see how awful things are
today." There was a wider range of r esponse among Muslims. The Hindu
Right would always argue that the fact that Muslims watched the serial
was proof that it was not communal. There are religious broadcasts
elsewhere in the world but they do not have the same charge as they do
here. The hi story of Hindu-Muslim relations is unique in that respect,
taken together with the secular dispensation that we had. I do not know
of a parallel to this sequence of events.

In what precise ways are you distinguishing your study from others on
the subject?

I argue that Hindutva in the late 1980s and early 1990s is quite
different from its earlier incarnations, and that understanding the
nature of this difference is essential in coming to terms with the new
terrain of politics. It has actually been argued, in some recent
scholarship, that recent Hindutva represents an expansion of political
space, and that it helped usher in globalisation. I tend to agree. But
we must also specify the mechanisms through which this change has
occurred, namely, through force s of the market and the media. These are
the more enduring bases of the change. Without locating these
conditions, we cannot grasp the paradox of Hindutva. Specifically, its
combination of authoritarian politics and expanding popular
participation. This points to new methods of political mobilisation, and
television both symbolises this change and casts light on it.

______________________________________________
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