[sacw] sacw dispatch (21 June 00)

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South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch
21 June 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

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#1. Pakistan: Cowasjee on Jinnah's speeches & statements made in 1947-48
#2. India: Khaki Prejudice

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#1.

DAWN
18 June 2000
Cowasjee Column

The sole statesman

By Ardeshir Cowasjee

"The government of the United States invariably does the right thing after
having exhausted all other possibilities." So said Winston Leonard Spencer
Churchill, the premier statesman of last century.

Had Churchill been alive today, and still ruminating over the loss of the
Empire ("I have not become the King's first minister in order to preside
over the liquidation of the British Empire" ) he would have said of
Pakistan of the year 2000 that the government of General Pervez Musharraf
makes the right noises but too often swiftly retracts its words when one or
more of the unrepresentative obscurantists of the country voices an
objection.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a proud man, proud for good reason; by the
overriding force of his indomitable will, and that alone, he carved out a
country for us. Not following the form of his day, Jinnah did not go to
jail for a single day, never embarked on a hunger strike, did not encourage
rowdy protest marches, he abhorred any form of violence. Liberal-minded and
self-confident he did what he liked, ate and drank what he liked, dressed
as he liked, encouraged others to do the same, held his head high - and
kept to his faith.

"Do your duty and have faith in God. There is no power on earth that can
undo Pakistan." This conviction was soon to be proved wrong. His buoyant
optimism and his firm certitude in the future of this country clouded his
perception of the calibre and character of the leaders who would
immediately and later follow him. He failed to conceive that through their
lack of ability, lack of integrity, their avarice, their unquenchable
greed, their hunger for power, pomp, pelf and position, they would be the
undoing of Pakistan.

He was the sole statesman this country has had. Those who followed were
small men, narrow of thought, fearful of others, who grabbed at today and
ignored the morrow. Within a quarter of a century half of Jinnah's Pakistan
was lost. What was left slid swiftly down the slithery hill. It is now an
overpopulated, illiterate, bankrupt country, the principal aim of its
leadership being to fight to acquire a disputed territory. Its main claim
to fame, of which it rarely ceases to remind the world at large, is its
nuclear prowess.

To repeat (and it bears repetition ad nauseam), when Jinnah addressed the
first constituent assembly of the country on August 11 1947 he embodied in
his speech the core of his philosophy, his ideas, and his vision for the
state he had founded. It was a fine piece of rhetoric; too fine, too moral,
too democratic, too liberal, too full of justice, too idealistic for the
Philistines. This speech has been interpreted in many different ways, it
has been subject to distortion, it has inspired fear in successive
governments, which would have been far happier had it never been delivered.
It is to the misfortune of the people of this country that their so-called
leaders have refused to live with, or up to, the principles by which Jinnah
wished them to be guided.

It is a matter of national shame that, from top to bottom, the citizens of
this country live in dread of contamination by the truth - such is the
measure of self-deception, insecurity, disunity, indiscipline, and
faithlessness.
On August 11, 1947, before the flag of Pakistan had even been unfurled,
Jinnah told his people and their future legislators:
"You are free, free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your
mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You
may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with
the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England
conditions some time ago were much worse than those prevailing in India
today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even
now there are some states in existence where there are discriminations made
and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting
in those days. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination,
no distinction between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with
this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of
one state. The people of England in course of time had to face the
realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and
burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went
through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that
Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every
man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all
members of the nation. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as
our ideal.....".

[This particular passage has been subject to deliberate distortion and
misinterpretation, inspiring the dishonest dogmatists who misappropriated
the country after his death with such fear and unease that in the official
biography of Jinnah commissioned by the Government of Pakistan, written by
Hector Bolitho, published in 1954, it was censored to falsely read:
".....You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing
to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal
citizens of one State..... Now, I think we should keep that in front of us
as our ideal....". (Most of the above passages were ommitted).]

That same August day, he made it clear to the future legislators and
administrators that "the first duty of a government is to maintain law and
order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are
fully protected by the state." He told them he would not tolerate the evils
of bribery, corruption, blackmarketeering and "this great evil, the evil of
nepotism and jobbery," the daily bread of powermongers. Little did he know
that day that these prime evils were to become prerequisites for the
survival of the politicians in and out of uniform and of the administrators
of all ranks and grades for the maintenance of their power.

In a way, it was fortunate that Jinnah did not live long enough to see the
negation of his principles, the perversion of his vision. A man of high
ideals, of impeccable moral and material honesty, tolerant, open-minded,
liberal to the core, a consummate statesman - his disillusion would have
been too great to bear.

This newspaper of record founded by Jinnah carried an editorial on
December 25 1989, his 113th official birthday, headed 'Back to Quaid's
ideals', from which I quote :
"At this juncture, a true appreciation and understanding of the precepts
and practices of the Quaid-i-Azam is crucially important. His visionary
concepts of statecraft could provide the basic guidelines in charting an
unfaltering democratic course for the nation. What is needed is a
revivification of the basic postulates that the Father of the Nation
enunciated in various speeches and policy statements he made during the
struggle for, and immediately after, the creation of Pakistan. A serious
effort must be made to rediscover the essence of his message and vision
from the plethora of twisted interpretation of his acts and utterances. We
have been guilty of passivity in the face of deliberate misrepresentations
and selective distortions of the Quaid's precepts by a whole tribe of
charlatans, pretenders and crafty autocrats to serve their selfish ends .
.. . It was neither theocracy nor feudalism nor exploitative capitalism
that the Quaid ever approved of. What he basically desired was a sovereign
state for the Muslims of the subcontinent based on the principles of
constitutionalism, democracy, federalism and Islamic social justice in
which the civil liberties and human rights of all citizens would be
guaranteed without any discrimination on any ground whatsoever.. . . . "

Oxford University Press in its Millenium Series has just published a book
of Jinnah's speeches and statements made in 1947-48, with an introduction
by S M Burke, historian and writer, successively an ICS judge, a diplomat
of Pakistan, and Professor and Consultant on South Asian studies at the
University of Minnesota. It is essential reading for the generals and the
others who rule over us from Islamabad.

_______

#2.

Khaki Prejudice

Ram Puniyani

The episode of (9th April, 2000) police force barging in to the Hostel of
Jamia Milia Isalmia on the pretext of looking for two offenders, and then
going on rampage is not only highly disturbing, but is one more reminder
of the communalsiation of state apparatus in general and of the police
force in particular. Earlier there was a fracas in which two of the
students were involved and were to be apprehended. The police contingent
of close to a thousand broke open the gate of the hostel, beat up the
warden and then mercilessly beat all around while hurling highly communal
abuses, calling the students Pakistani agents, ISI agents and also made
other derogatory remarks. It is worth recalling that Jamia Milia Islamia
is one of the products of the struggle for independence and has been the
flag bearer of Indian Nationalism, Secularism and Democracy.

The list of biased behavior of police can be infinitesimally long. Not
very long ago in Post demolition Mumbai riots most of the victims of
police 'action' were Muslims. In the first phase of riots when police was
using the bullets with gay abandon, the victims who during this phase
happened to be mostly Muslims suffered bullet wounds. While in the second
phase the victims suffered stab wounds mainly due to the action instigated
by the Shiv Sena.

One of the police officials, Vibhuti Narayan Rai, conducted a study in to
the behavior of police in the communal riots (Record of Police Neutrality
in Communal Riots, Indian Journal of Secularism, Dec 97). The finding of
this study is very disturbing. The study is based on the interviews with
the community leaders, feedback from serving and the retired police
personnel, record of the police academy, and study of the reports of
different communal riots. While we know that 65% the victims of communal
riots have been Muslims the arrest and casualty figures are very
revealing. In Bhiwandi riots 1970 of those arrested in cognisable
offences, 21 were Hindus while 901 were Muslims, casualties wise, 17 were
Hindus and 59 were Muslims. In Meerut riots of 1982 the pattern is no
different 124 Hindus were arrested, as against 231 Muslims while 2 Hindus
and 8 Muslims were the victims of casualty. As in Mumbai, here also police
bullets selective hit the body of Muslims and soul of secular values. In
Bhiwandi (1970), Firozabad (1972), Aligarh (1978), Meerut (1982) there was
not a single Hindu victim of police bullets while the number of Muslims
dying of police bullets respectively was-9, 6,7,and 6.

Let us have a look at come of the glaring examples of the police
partiality. In Meerut riot in 1987 P.A.C. was deployed to control the
riots. As the violence continued unabated for some time, PAC according to
its theory that Muslims are responsible for the riots and should be taught
a lesson, picked up more than two dozen Muslims from a locality known as
Hashimpura and killed them at two places in Gaziabad after transporting
them in their truck.
One of the worst complicity of the police in communal violence was seen in
Bhagalpur riots (1989). Here the police was a mute witness to the murder
of 116 Muslims who were buried in a field and cauliflower was grown on it
to cover up the episode. Bhagalpur police administration kept denying this
till another police party led by a DIG dug out some of these dead bodies.

Police "Understanding" of the situation

Because of the heavy communalsation of the police force it believes that
communal riots are due to Muslims and this is what guides their conduct.
Their communalised consciousness is supplemented by brutal savagery, which
gets further compounded by their non-professional approach in dealing with
these situations. Many Muslim predominant areas are termed as
'mini-Pakistan' and police force while entering these areas enter with the
preparation and the spirit as if they are entering the enemy territory.
This also makes them do the riot investigation in apathetic manner and
years after years they keep sitting on the available evidence, which goes
against their deep-set biases. Two of the comments from inquiry commission
reports will give us a good glimpse of the attitude of some of the
officers of the police. In the Bhiwandi-Jalgaon riot the Madon commission
commented "The real reason for the inadequacy of the measures taken by the
authorities was the communal bent of mind of some of the officers and
incompetence of othersUnfortunately, the SP, Mr. S.T.Raman appears to have
possessed a communal bent of mind and perhaps a pro Jana Sangh (Previous
avatar of BJP)he fully realised the seriousness of situation but chose to
turn a blind eye"

In more recent Mumbai riots those who were implicated in the riots dubbed
Justice Shri Krishna as anti Hindu. The police also got its 'due share' in
the report, " police officers, particularly at the junior level, appeared
to have an in built bias against the Muslims which was evident in their
treatment of the Muslims and Muslim victims of the riots. The treatment
given was harsh and brutal and, on occasions, bordering on inhuman, hardly
doing any credit to the police. The bias of policemen was seen in active
connivance of police constables with the rioting Hindu mobs on occasions,
with their adopting the role of passive onlookers on other occasions, and
finally, in their lack of enthusiasm in registering offences against
Hindus even when the accused were clearly identified (vol., p.25-26) And
"Despite clues, miscreants were not pursued, arrested and interrogated,
particularly when the suspected accused happened to be Hindus with
connections to Shiv Sena or Shiv Sainiks. This general apathy appears to
be the outcome of built-in prejudices in the minds of average policeman
that every Muslim is prone to crime"(Vol. I, p.26)

Commission after commission of inquiry are full of these and similar type
of examples of maltreatment and biased behavior against Muslims. Police
not only behave in a partial manner during riots, in most of the 'regular'
situations also these biases govern their attitudes. Mostly the police act
more as a 'Hindu force' rather than as an arm of secular state. The
discrimination in their behavior is obvious at all the levels. By now
minorities have starting looking at them as the hostile force. Lately it
is the experience of the second largest minority, the Christians as well.

What is the remedy to this impasse? On one hand the communalisation of
society is cornering the minorities and on the other the supposedly
protective force has no qualms in conniving and even acting on behalf of
the offending communal elements. This is of course due to multiple
factors. The recruits to the police force are from the same group, which
is on the communal offensive. The training programmes of police academies
etc. are not at all geared for secularisation of its trainees. On the
contrary many a top officials themselves are having heavy communal bias.
The representation of the minorities in the police force is abysmal and
the recruitment policy of the state has remained lop sided resulting in a
very low percentage of Muslims in the police force. All these need to be
reversed as early as possible. Not only that there should be a conscious
effort to improve the percentage of Muslims in the police force but also
the training programme needs to be recast with an emphasis not only on the
Human rights of minorities but also the general communalisation has to be
fought against at all the levels.

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