[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 24 July 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
24 July 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

#1. Politics of Indo-Pak conflict
#2. Pakistan: Politics of religion
#3. India: Exile and Kingdom
#4. India: VHP goons thrash Christian leader
_____________________

#1.

The Hindustan Times
24 July 2000
Op-Ed.

POLITICS OF CONFLICT

[By] Amulya Ganguli

Critics of Track II diplomacy with Pakistan want to keep tension alive
against Indian Muslims as well.

A picture of Pakistani women - faces and hair covered, leaving only the
eyes open - protesting against the visit a few weeks ago of their
somewhat more liberated sisters to India would have gladdened the hearts
of those in this country who also frown on such Track II efforts to
improve mutual relations.

Their view is one of perpetual enmity between the two countries,
rendering anyone making friendly overtures suspect in their eyes of
harbouring treacherous designs.

It is an opinion based on the conviction that the Hindu-Muslim
differences represent a civilisational conflict, allowing neither a
peaceful solution nor a permanent truce. It has to end in a fight to the
finish, so chillingly articulated in one of Sadhvi Rithambara's
blood-curdling cassettes calling for a final apocalyptic khoon-kharaba
when 10 Bajrang Balis will dance on the chest of each Ali.

RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan's recent prediction of an epic war between
Hindus and non-Hindus is of this genre.

A former editor of The Times of India and an ardent saffronite, Girilal
Jain, was among those who subscribed to the thesis of civilisational
conflict. Since such a view endorses the two-nation theory, it is not
surprising that Giri, as he was known among journalists, described
Jinnah, "half in jest and half in seriousness," as the "greatest
benefactor of Hindus in modern times" since "Partition was the best
thing that could have happened for Hindus." And why? Because "Partition
had finally ended the civilisational stalemate in favour of Hindus in
three-fourths of India," Giri said in his book, The Hindu Phenomenon.

This was, of course, the standard argument for Partition - that once
Hindus had India (or three-fourths of it) and the Muslims Pakistan, they
would live happily ever after. But the reality has been different
because of the contrast between India's multicultural democratic polity
and Pakistan's theocratic dictatorial one.

Besides, since large numbers of Muslims stayed back in India, the
earlier Hindu-Muslim problem which essentially related to a gradual
evolution into a common nationhood reassumed its original context all
over again in this country.

It was an ideal which was articulated by Jinnah himself in 1913 when he
said, "When you find that Europe consisting of different nationalities
and powers can maintain what was known as 'concert of powers' during the
recent war, is it too much to ask and appeal to Hindus and Mohammedans,
the two great communities in India, to combine in one harmonious union
for the common good?" Jinnah did not keep his own advice, either in
undivided India or in 'moth-eaten' Pakistan. But the great Indian
experiment of the last half a century, which is now slowly being
appreciated by the international community perturbed over the civil
strife in Sri Lanka, Fiji, Africa and the Balkans, has been to make a
success of the famous 'unity in diversity' theme.

The thesis of civilisational conflict is diametrically opposed to the
unity concept based on a multicultural polity. The latter has also come
under increasing threat because of Pakistan's degeneration into a
terrorist state and the appearance of Islamic fundamentalism in the
aftermath of the Iranian 'revolution'. The mindless kowtowing to the
reactionary Muslim demands by various governments, as in the Shah Bano
case, has also given secularism a bad name.

Even then, the idea that all communities must learn to live in harmony,
which underlines secularism and negates the civilisational conflict
theory, has not lost ground. In fact, through the experience of
governance, even the BJP has learnt to appreciate it, simply because the
only alternative is endless civil strife. Thus, even L.K. Advani has had
to say that the "country is so heterogeneous that... an ideological
party, be it the communists or the Jan Sangh, cannot hope to come to
power at the Centre on its own" and that there is a need for the
"transformation of an ideological party operating in a democracy into an
aggregative one because of the pressure of public opinion."

It is not a view, however, which is shared by other wings of the Sangh
parivar which still harp on the irreconcilable differences between
Hindus and Muslims. The opponents of Track II are in agreement with such
groups. But theirs is a typically devious approach. On the face of it,
they are merely calling for a hard-headed attitude towards Pakistan,
arguing that even if India takes the Lahore initiative, Islamabad will
stab us in the back by infiltrating into Kargil. Hence, there is no
scope for sentimentalism on the basis that "we are one people" because,
first, Pakistan's very formation is a negation of that concept and,
secondly, its continuance as a nation-state is based on an unrelenting
hostility towards India. That is what keeps Pakistan united; otherwise
it will fall apart.

Prima facie, there is something to be said for shunning the dewy-eyed
attitude of the Track II enthusiasts. But their opponents have more than
just Pakistan in mind. By their shrill denunciation of any softening of
the Indian approach, they are actually hoping for a hardening of the
domestic attitude towards the Indian Muslims as well. It is not a secret
that, unfortunately, to a large number of Indians, the Indian Muslim is
a hidden Pakistani. What is more, these 'children of Babur' are yet to
atone for the sins of their forefathers.

To quote from one of the less abusive among the letters which I receive:
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. History
and the centuries of Muslim rule tell us how the barbaric Muslim
invaders massacred, plundered and converted countless Hindus to Islam by
force, and raised (sic) to ground thousands of Hindu temples. People
like you do not want our children to know these historical facts. You
don't want the Hindus to stand up to the Muslim bully..."

Amazingly, the writer goes on to say: "I do not believe in inciting
Hindus against anybody. I want the Hindu community to be strong. Only
the strong can command respect. I am no RSS, Bajrang Dal or Shiv Sena
man. I even do not know Hindi. My subjects were Persian and Urdu..."

=46or all his pacifist intentions, however, it is clear enough that views
of this nature are based on an intense dislike of an entire community.
They also form the basis of the Sangh parivar's philosophy which has
also recently incorporated an equally paranoiac attitude towards the
Christians. It is not surprising, therefore, that Track II diplomacy is
anathema to such people. They may even be against a settlement with
Pakistan, for the present hostility is essential for their electoral
success. That they have their counterparts across the border make the
situation even more worrisome.

Europe went through such phases of animosity during the Thirty Years'
War in Germany (1618-48) fuelled by France and the Hundred Years' War
between France and England in the 14th and 15th centuries. Isolated
pockets of such medievalism still survive in Northern Ireland and the
Balkans. But, by and large, Europe has overcome that tragic period in
its history. South Asia, however, is yet to do so.

______

#2.

DAWN
23 July 2000
Op-Ed.

POLITICS OF RELIGION

By Mohammad Waseem

THE current trend of thinking in the establishment in favour of
accommodation of Islamic elements in the country has been noticed far
and wide. The general opinion is that history is repeating itself: the
army needs Islamic parties and Islamic parties need the army.
General Pervaiz Musharraf's government has formally incorporated various
Islamic injunctions, which were part of the constitution, back into the
currently operative provisional constitutional order. These injunctions
relate to the Objectives Resolution, Federal Shariat Court and Islamic
Ideological Council, among other things. It is obvious that no
substantive change has occurred in the way the country is being ruled,
or even the style in which Islamic institutions generally operate. The
significance of the move lies in the public gesture, the profile and the
message which it conveys, meaning thereby that the existing pattern of
cooperation between the state establishment and certain Islamic groups
will continue unchanged. General Musharraf's recent meetings with
Maulana Fazalur Rahman and Maulana Samiul Haq - political leaders on the
margins of the mainstream politics - point to the same direction.
What is happening? On the one hand, Islamic parties have been defeated
in successive elections. On the other hand, these parties have been
catapulted into a prominent position as partners of powerful groups
within the establishment. This partnership has been for pursuit of
certain foreign policy objectives as well as for keeping a check on the
mainstream political parties such as the PML and the PPP known to be
strongly opposed to the present set-up. Therein lies the root of the
problem. Islamic parties, which have been kept marginalized by the
people, have been appropriated by the state. This reflects a dichotomy
between the democratic expression of the will of the general public in
favour of popular leaderships in provinces and at the federal level on
the one hand and the pattern of alliance between Islamic parties and the
military establishment on the other.
=46or the first two decades of Pakistan's history, Islamic parties did not
wield any significant level of influence. They continued to operate from
the pulpit of the mosque and to demand Islamization of laws, while they
remained dispossessed in terms of implements of power. The 1970 election
changed all that JI, JUI and JUP emerged on the political stage on the
basis of a degree of popular vote. The political vision of these and
other Islamic parties from 1967 to 1977 was inspired by the prospects of
an electoral victory. From Zia's military coup onwards, and especially
during the decade-long Afghan war, these parties made significant
in-roads into the state apparatus. However, the 1985 non-party elections
gave a rude shock to both the Zia government and the Islamic parties.
Even after eight years of pursuit of an Islamization programme by Zia,
people remained disinclined to vote for Islamic elements, who managed to
serape through with only 9 out of 237 seats in parliament.
One can point to two parallel processes from 1985 to 1999. One, Islamic
parties gradually declined in terms of their vote-catching pull and
capacity. Qazi Hussain Ahmed of JI made a serious effort to appeal to
the public by addressing their routine grievances and thus shifting the
idiom and focus away from the practice merely of pledging to establish
an Islamic system in the country. The JI manifesto for the 1993
elections hardly mentioned the Islamic agenda. But nothing worked. In
the subsequent years, the PML(N) was able to appropriate Islamic
politics as well. The 1997 elections returned only two out of 207
members of the National Assembly who had contested elections from the
platform of political parties. the two belonged to JUI; other Islamic
parties were defeated. JI boycotted elections.
The decline of Islamic parties in terms of electoral politics led to
their disgust with parliamentary democracy. Meanwhile, new jihadi groups
emerged against the backdrop of the liberation struggle in Kashmir.
Thus, the second process was characterized by cooperation between
certain wings of the military establishment and some Islamic groups,
both old and new.
In post-October 1999, when the military establishment got exclusive
control over the levers of power without any recourse to society at
large, it could be expected that it would make full use of its links
with Islamic parties as a political resource of not a mean potential.
After some initial 'liberal' gestures, the military-led government is
seeking to reinvigorate its ties with the Islamists.
Whose gain is it anyway? Are religious parties allies of the
establishment per se, or perhaps its clients or merely instruments for
pursuit of the agenda set by the state? Are Islamists shrewd pragmatists
who want to use the state patronage to get themselves entrenched in
powerful positions, or spread the influence and liverage of the
religious establishment? When the Musharraf government withdrew its
proposed amendment in the procedural aspects of the Blasphemy Law, its
action was ascribed to the fear of a backlash from the Islamic forces.
It is increasingly obvious that aside from trying to keep Islamic
elements from going on the streets to agitate against it, the
establishment has by nd large maintained a positive attitude to
religious elements.
But who in the establishment decides that it should project a
conservative and then liberal and then again a conservative image of
itself? Obviously, the establishment not a monolithic entity. Instead,
it is characterized by a differentiation pattern along the
tradition-modernity continuum. Three broad categories of influence
structures within the establishment can be outlined. First, there are
Islamists, who were recruited, co-opted, converted, promoted or
strengthened during the Zia years both in the bureaucracy and in the
army and in their subsidiary bodies as well as out in the field in
various sectors of public life. While the Islamists operated
spasmodically and inconsequentially as disparate elements for two and
half decades after partition, from 1970s onwards they have been
effectively represented within the agenda-setting and decision-making
structures of the state. As a privileged minority, they play a
larger-than-size role.
Secondly, there are the mavericks and strategists, who want to use
Islamic forces in pursuit of their own agenda. They are master
manipulators. They believe that these forces are no threat to the
establishment now or in the future, and that they can be controlled
whenever they become too big for their boots. They are at the centre of
the constellation of powers ruling Pakistan today. They tend to join
hands with the Islamists of the first category in pursuit of its agenda
for Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Gulf region as well as Kashmir and
South Asia.
Thirdly, there are the globalists who want to put Pakistan firmly where
it truly belongs, among the leading nations of the region and the Third
World. These modernist-liberal-pragmatist elements are strewn all over
in the upper echelons of the government. They had set the national
agenda during early decades of Pakistan's history when strategists
played only second fiddle to them. The former have all along been
sensitive to the requirements of the world economic order, global
displomacy and regional politics. Today, their forte is globalism, with
its political and economic implications. While those in the first
category moved forward to power and privilege, those in the third
category declined gradually.
This process is represented by the emergence of a regional agenda on
top, which pushed the global as well as local agenda out of the way.
Thus, the establishment is not convinced that Pakistan suffers from a
problem of diplomatic isolation in the world. Many countervailing
arguments are presented to prove otherwise. Also, it does not
countenance the validity and legitimacy of the demand for restoration of
democracy. The issue of reorienting relations with Afghanistan largely
remains unattended, even as some feeble and tentative moves in this
direction have been made recently.The role of Islam in politics of
Pakistan in the year 2000 can be defined with reference to leading
players on the stage. Foremost among them are Islamic parties.
They need to be encouraged to stick to electoral politics where ballot
rather than bullet decides the issue of rulership. Bringing them back
into the orbit of parliamentary democracy will be a step in the right
direction. The policy-making organs of the state need to re-evaluate
their need to use Islamic groups in pursuit of their policy objectives.
They need to analyze the power-play at the global and regional levels
and establish and/or maintain good relations with the US, the UK and
other Commonwealth countries as well as with China and other Shanghai-5
countries. Meanwhile, the West needs to raise the stakes of Pakistan in
the global system by cultivating a spirit of amity and goodwill. A
comprehensive package of economic relief and assistance, coupled with a
diplomatic initiative to address the issue of Kashmir, would help
Pakistan make an early transition to civic culture.
______

#3.

The Hindustan Times
24 July 2000
Op-Ed.

EXILE AND KINGDOM

[by] Amit Sengupta

If you are a pseudo-secularist like me, you need not have any fear in
this zone of exile. No one will ask you your religion, caste or
sub-caste here. And no one will demand your identity card. It does not
matter if you are an Indian, a Pakistani or a Bangladeshi immigrant.

No tourist comes here. Certainly not the respectable gentry. This is not
a picture postcard place where you can wash a Pepsi down with a pack of
Uncle Chipps and click some quick picnic pictures. This is nowhere
territory, tucked away in time in a hidden corner of the Hindi
heartland.

=46orsaken by its self-made destiny, without longing or despair, not
seeking love or dying slowly because of the absence of it.

If you come here with prejudice, it will leave you rootless. If you come
rootless, you may find a sublime sensibility. A communion with life
which is elsewhere.

Just about 15 minutes from the non-stop bustle of the market and mandi
of Saharanpur town in western UP, detached from the strong smell of raw
cucumbers and rotting nullahs, you will suddenly enter an expanse which
has mingled over the years into a pluralist entity: a desolate
Hindu-Muslim expanse. They stand together in their detached stillness,
sometimes separated by a forest by-lane, sometimes touching each other.

Broken samadhis and graves, a Hindu funeral place and a Muslim
graveyard, ancient, faded temples and ruined sacred spaces. They stand
scattered and solitary, and when you look at them they too look at you
while the wind moves like a slow whistle through the grass.

Amid this, footsteps engraved on the ground. A home for Shiva. A
charcoal graffiti on the wall.

Under a mango tree sits a Muslim protecting his fruits. All his trees
are inside the Baada. He smokes a bidi and says: "There is no religion
except the religion of man. I protect my trees. This is my religion."

A sanyasi on the steps whispers: "Jite lakri, marte lakri, dekh tamasha
lakri ka (In life it is wood, in death it is wood, witness this
spectacle of wood)".

Lal Das ka Baada has no nameplate, no brand name, no marble tiles, no
loudspeakers, not even the smell of incense. It could be the ephemeral
home of the sufi, the bhakti poet, the baul, the wanderer, the tantrik,
the unhappy lover of god. This place belongs to the Samana, to the
stoic, to Siddhartha, who will come here one day to find the revelation
that knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom.

Then suddenly, in this soliloquy of dry leaves and grass left untouched
for ages, you will hear the sound of water.

The story is that Lal Das was a saint during the bhakti movement who
chose to live here. He would walk every day to Hardwar to bathe in the
Ganga and come back. The river goddess was pleased. And hence, she
diverted a tiny rivulet to his ashram so that he did not have to trek
all the way to Hardwar.

Hardwar is a good 150 minutes from this place on a rickety World War II
UP Roadways bus. Perhaps those days it was much nearer. But the story is
sweet because the Ganga flows far away and the rivulet which flows here
is still called the Ganga and the pool around it is called Ganga Ghat
where all the drop-outs of the town and Muslim and Hindu children of the
village neighbourhood and dozens of buffaloes and goats splash around
all day. No priest shoos them away.

The story is sweeter because everyone believes that this is the Ganga.
They have faith in this little digression of a river which has come to
them from its great Himalayan origin.

______

#4.

Recieved from S.I. (N Delhi) on 23 July 2000
[Mr. Samson Christian a leading human rights' activist from Gujarat, India
who was on the hit list of the communal goons of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
was attacked yesterday by the same elements. The following report of the
Hindustan Times, a national daily of India describes the dastardly attack.
The administration has remained a silent spectator to this fascist attack
like other incidents.]

The Hindustan Times, 22/7/2000, New Delhi, Ahmedabad

VHP MEN THRASH CHRISTIAN LEADER

[by] Rathin Das
(Ahmedabad, July 21)

SAMSON CHRISTIAN, an executive member of the All India Christian Council,
was severely beaten up by two VHP activists here this afternoon. He is in
hospital, nursing head injuries that needed two stitches.

Mr Samson has filed about a dozen writ petitions in the High Court over
Sangh Parivar attacks on tribal Christians in Gujarat. Today's violence
follows a VHP attack on the principal of Good Shepherd High School in the
same area on Wednesday.

Mr Samson was in the principal's office this morning when two VHP activists
asked him to come out, intimidated him with threats and abuses and then hit
him on his stomach with a brick. As Mr Samson ran for cover to a housing
colony nearby, one of them hit him on the head with a brick. Bleeding, Mr
Samson managed to lock himself in a bathroom until residents of the
building rescued him.

VHP men had on Wednesday attacked the Good Shepherd School's principal, a
woman clerk and an attendant following a "complaint" by the driver of an
autorickshaw that the school was forcibly preaching Christianity.

The principal's version is that autorickshaw driver's young son was allowed
to continue in the school even though his fees was not paid between
December last and April this year.

The parent shifted the son to another school thereafter =F3 without clearing
the fee arrears =F3 and "spread the rumour that Good Shepherd High School wa=
s
spreading Christianity among the non-Christian students".

______________________________________________
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