[sacw] sacw dispatch (20 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch
20 May 2000
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#1. Pakistan: Military should atone for its legacy
#2. India: Sikh radicals, RSS battle it out through booklets
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#1.

=46riday Times
19 May 2000

Military should atone for its legacy

Ejaz Haider argues that the state's unholy alliance with extremist
religious elements has bred savagery and sectarianism, confusion and
contradiction

Under pressure from right- and ultra-right wing parties, the military
government has announced that it is dropping the proposed amendment in
the procedure for filing a First Information Report under the blasphemy
law. The amendment sought to reduce instances of false accusations under
the law and empowered a middle-ranking civil servant, the deputy
commissioner, to investigate the charge before a prima fascie case could
be made against the accused.

The government has capitulated ignominiously. The clergy has smelled
blood and is now pushing for a complete acceptance of its 5-point
agenda. The other four points relate to inclusion of Islamic articles in
the provisional constitutional order, rejection of joint electorates,
rejection of western pressure to rein in extremist religious
institutions and jihadi organisations, and banning of NGOs funded by
Western money. The ulema are pressing ahead with the Friday (today)
strike call unless the government concedes all their demands, including
reverting to Friday as the weekly holiday instead of Sunday.

What will the government do now after its abject surrender on a small
issue as a bonafide amendment in a legal procedure? This is an important
question because the other points on the clergy's agenda are also linked
up not only with the development of a modern civil society but also with
Pakistan's image abroad. After all, the present brouhaha did not relate
to the government's intention to revoke the blasphemy law, but merely to
check its abuse. And there is no dearth of evidence about how much it
has been misused. Yet, the clergy has deemed fit to attack it. Why is
that?

The cleverness of the gimmick is evident more in the other four points
on the agenda than in the one it has already clinched. Fearing that the
government might try to undo the elaborate network which the extremist
religious elements have created over the past two decades, the clergy
has launched a preemptive strike. As things stand, far from mounting a
counter-strike, the government has failed to even ride-out the first
salvo.

General Musharraf says the government has withdrawn the amendment
because popular opinion was against it. How does the general define
popular opinion and how did he quantify it? Does the clergy constitute
popular opinion in his view? If so, on what basis? Does popular opinion
mean street power, or firepower, or a combination of both? Or has the
general become a democrat who worries about his vote-bank? He needs to
sit down and think hard. His government has already allowed the clergy
to hijack issues of foreign policy; now, he has conceded the mullahs
ground even on a rational domestic agenda. Does he intend to continue
with his weak-kneed response to the forces of obscurantism?

Something is amiss here. Militaries are not supposed to govern
countries. The Supreme Court of Pakistan might have validated this
military government but it has done so on the basis of the "doctrine of
necessity", which setting other niceties aside means the logic of right
conceding to the logic of might. Besides, necessity implies
extraordinary circumstances; that something has happened that should not
have happened but became inevitable because the ordinary running of the
government in an orderly manner was no longer possible. Extraordinary,
therefore, is the essence of General Musharraf's government; he cannot
afford an ordinary performance.

Perhaps the general needs to be reminded here of the 1953 disturbances
on the Ahmadi issue and the three demands put to the then Punjab chief
minister by the ulema's Council of Action. The chief minister accepted
the demands, as did some other League leaders, but told the Council's
delegation that since the matter related to the constitution, it could
only be decided by the central government. The issue then came to the
then prime minister, Khwaja Nazimuddin. Nazimuddin had two options:
either to accept the demands on the basis of the ulema's exegesis, or
treat the challenge thrown his way by the clergy as a law and order
situation, which was his duty as chief executive to maintain. He opted
for the latter course. Disturbances broke out in Lahore. The city was
placed under martial law and the agents provocateurs arrested.

Later, the government constituted a 2-member judicial inquiry committee
to look into the causes of the disturbances. The committee produced what
has come to be known as the Munir Report. Some quotes from that report,
as reproduced by late Justice Muhammad Munir in his book, "From Jinnah
to Zia," are perhaps in order. "...it is our deep conviction that if
the...[problem] had been treated as a pure question of law and order,
without political considerations, one District Magistrate and one
Superintendent of Police could have dealt with...[it]. Consequently, we
are prompted...to inquire whether in our present state of political
development, the administrative problems of law and order cannot be
divorced from a democratic bed-fellow called a ministerial Government
which is so remorselessly haunted by political considerations...".

However, the political government of the time despite its political
considerations acted with more grit than our present chief executive has
shown. While the then Punjab chief minister fell prey to political
considerations, the central government, despite being a political
government, showed the political will to stand up to the challenge and
put the ulema's medieval obscurantism down.

The report, almost presciently, went on to say: "In his evidence Khwaja
Nazimuddin has used a very apt simile while complaining that the Chief
Minister of the Punjab wished him to hold the baby. If the demands be
compared to a baby, the whole subject of responsibility can be put into
a single sentence and that is that the Ahrar [the instigators of the
trouble] gave birth to a baby and offered it to the ulema for adoption
who agreed to father it, and that anticipating that the baby would cause
mischief if it grew in the province, the Chief Minister cast it in a
canal...to flow down Moses-like to Khwaja Nazimuddin.

"Khwaja Nazimuddin, in the apparent good looks of the baby noticed a
frown and something indefinably sinister and therefore refusing to take
it in his lap threw it away, with the result that the baby kicked and
raised up a row which enveloped the province of its birth and threw both
Khwaja Nazimuddin and the Chief Minister out of office. The baby is
still alive and waiting for someone to pick it up. And in this
God-gifted State of Pakistan there are careers for everybody - political
brigands and adventurers, even non-entities." (emphasis added)

That baby was picked up by none other than the "progressive" prime
minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto when he felt his throne tottering. Since
then the baby has not only grown, it has spawned others like it, each
with a frown and something indefinably sinister about it. And like then
- in fact more than ever before - in this God-gifted State of Pakistan
there are careers for everybody - political brigands and adventurers,
even non-entities.

In the seventies, a political brigand was followed by an adventurer. Did
we see a repeat of that last year? The adventurer of the seventies
needed to ally himself with nonentities to create a constituency. The
brigand had shown him the way and he was all too happy to go the whole
hog. What kind of constituency is General Musharraf pandering to, or
wants to pander to? General Ziaul Haq used his unfettered powers to
institutionalise obscurantism. Knowing where the baby has led us, and
where it is likely to lead us further, should our currently ruling
general not use his unfettered powers to do the reverse?

The general's reference to popular opinion can only extract a laugh. He
cannot use the excuse of democracy for failing to act where it is
necessary and employ firepower where he wants to and can push things
through. Too many governments in the past have conceded ground to
extremist, politically motivated religious elements. The one man who
spent all his energies to put the liberal forces down was Ziaul Haq. He
pulled religion out of the spiritual domain and thrust it into the
ritual domain. He knew his top-down approach would be supplemented by
the bottom-up approach of the elements he was pandering to, and before
long the ritualistic streak would spread laterally into society. He was
also helped in this by external events such as the Afghan war and the
revolution in Iran. Those external events helped extremist religious
elements to supplement the "legal" structures Zia was creating with
firepower to overwhelm any possible opposition. Since then, we have seen
nothing but savagery and sectarianism. But the state's unholy alliance
with these elements continues, breeding more contradictions and acute
confusion.

The military is again in the saddle. The least it can do is to atone for
its own legacy. Yet, what the general has done today, he may well not be
able to undo tomorrow.
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#2.

Hindustan Times
20 May 2000

Sikh radicals, RSS battle it out through booklets
Ludhiana, May 19
(HT Correspondent)
AFTER POLEMICS, the RSS and some Sikh radicals in the State now seem to
be locked in a war of the written word.

While the Sikh radicals, charging the RSS with intrusion in Sikh
affairs, are circulating a 24-book booklet to "awaken" Sikhs, the RSS on
its part is promoting its literature in villages all over the State.

The booklet, circulated by Sikh radicals - can be found in the offices
of the Mini Secretariat besides other government institutions and even
the libraries of the Punjab Agricultural University - defines Sikhs,
recounts contributions and features of the community, before ending with
a strongly-worded note to the members of the community. The cautionary
note reads: "You are being ECLIPSED. You are being deviated by the
cleverer people and being VICTIMISED. You are being deprived of your
character=8A you are being made VICTIM of the VICES. Your turban is being
taken off. Take care of it."

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