[sacw] sacw dispatch (6 June 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch
6 June 2000

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#1. India: Talibanisation of textbooks
#2. Secularism, Indian Style
#3. India: Et tu, RSS?
#4. Post 1947 Muslim Politics in India a dead end
#5. U.S.A. / India / Pakistan: Request from scholar working on Partition
migration
#6. Sri Lanka: CPJ on Continuing Censorship Restrictions

__________________________

#1.

Hindustan Times
6 June 2000
Editorial

TALIBANISATION OF TEXTBOOKS: SANGH BRAND HISTORY HAS CRASS COMMUNAL
OVERTONES

THE STUDY of history might once again hit the centrestage of Indian
politics.

And predictably, it is the Sangh parivar which is at the centre of this
controversy. As reported in this newspaper, thousands of Rashtriya
Swayam Sewak schools are teaching a brand of history, especially where
it concerns the Babri masjid demolition and the minorities, which does
not always apply either an objective methodology or a factual historical
paradigm. Instead, it is loaded with crass communal overtones. Clearly,
the sole purpose of this reinterpretation of historical facts is to
indoctrinate and poison young minds with a prejudiced vision of the
past.

=46or instance, the textbook curriculum of the Vidya Bharati Akhil
Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan, which is affiliated with the RSS, has
claimed that the Babri masjid was not a mosque because Muslims "have
never till today offered namaaz there". Other fantastic revelations
state that from 1528 to 1914, 350,000 "devotees of Lord Ram have laid
down their lives to liberate the Ram temple" and that foreigners invaded
Sri Ramjanambhoomi not less then 77 times. In terms of the contemporary
history of modern India, the textbooks state that November 2, 1990, will
be inscribed in black letters "because on that day the then Chief
Minister, by ordering the police to shoot unarmed kar sevaks, massacred
hundreds of them." All this, of course, is complete nonsense - packed
with lies and untruths.

The National Steering Committee for Text Book Evaluations has expressed
its concern over the use of "blatantly communal" writings in the series
"Sanskrit Jnan" in the Vidya Bharati schools. This is a dangerous trend
because it tries to compel young minds to deny the pluralist character
of Indian society and create a mindset in which minority communities
become targets of hate. The RSS should realise that in its great zeal to
rewrite history, it often looks like the mirror-image of the Taliban.
The fundamentalist outfits in Pakistan and Afghanistan have brainwashed
an entire generation of young people through their madarsas, with
hatred, dogmatism and violence as their raison d'etre. The RSS seems to
be following in their footsteps.

Young people come to schools with faith and innocence. They believe
their textbooks to be the final repository of truth. Hence, no school,
run by any institution, private or governmental, should be allowed to
use communal or sectarian propaganda. To poison the minds of the young
is the equivalent of cultural genocide - you destroy not just an
education, but an entire culture. Murli Manohar Joshi's HRD Ministry
must move quickly to remove the poison from our schools. And as for the
RSS - if Mr Sudarshan does not want to go down in history as the
knicker-clad Ayatollah Khomeini of India - it should disown the books
and the mindset that produced them. Nobody has the right to turn India
into the Taliban's Afghanistan.

=A9 Hindustantimes.com

_______

#2.

The Telegraph
6 June 2000
Op-Ed.

SECULARISM, INDIAN STYLE

BY PARTHA PRATIM BASU
=20
=20
=46irst they stormed Delhi riding the crest of Hindutva, closely followed
by the spate of minority-bashing, and then came the announcement of the
Constitution review panel. From here, many thought, it would be a short
step for the Bharatiya Janata Party to launch a frontal assault on the
secular foundation of our Constitution. Since then the prime minister's
assurances and statements of panel members seem to have assuaged the
anxieties - to some extent.
It might be instructive here to ponder the issue the other way round,
and recount how the constitutional arrangement pertaining to a secular
state in India has contributed its bit towards the consolidation of the
forces of Hindutva.

The word "secular" did not originally occur in the description of the
Indian republic in the preamble to the Constitution, and this omission
was deliberate. True, the Indian Constitution faithfully reflected two
principal elements of the liberal democratic vision of secularism:
Articles 25 and 26 guaranteed the right to freedom of religion and the
right of religious denominations to manage their own affairs, while
articles 14 and 15 affirmed the right to equality and non-discrimination
by the state on religious grounds.

But a third cardinal principle - state indifference towards religion -
was replaced by that of the state paying equal respect to all religions
- sarvadharmasamabhava. This, it was felt, was more in keeping with the
culture and tradition of India. Accordingly, the Constitution did not
admit of any state religion, forbade the imposition of taxes for
promotion of any particular religion (Article 27) and ruled out compulso
ry religious instruction in state aided educational institutions
(Article 28).

The more radical break with archetypal secularism came through extension
of constitutional sanction to state intervention in religious affairs.
Article 25(2) empowered the state to regulate by law any secular
activity associated with religious practice and to provide for social
welfare and reform.

While defending this provision, B.R. Ambedkar asserted that the
religious conceptions in this country were so vast that they covered
every aspect of life from birth to death. Therefore, unless the state
was granted this liberty, it would be impossible for our legislatures to
enact any social measure whatsoever. In other words, to quote historian
Partha Chatterjee, the violation of this principle of secular state was
justified precisely by the desire to secularize - secularize the social
order.

Ever since the inception of the Constitution, the powers deriving from
this article were exercised with great gusto by the Indian state which
appeared to carry forward the mission of the 19th century social
reformers. A series of laws were enacted by various state legislatures:
the Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act, Temple Entry Authorization
Act, Animal and Birds Sacrifices Abolition Act, Hindu Religious and
Charitable Endowments Act, to name a few. This reformist activism
reached its high water mark with the passage of the Hindu code bill,
whereby Parliament went through the maze of local and sectarian
variations of Hindu law and laid down a single code of personal law for
all Hindu citizens.

All these progressive legislative measures, however, concerned Hindu
religious institutions and practices. Indeed, many of the provisions of
the Hindu code involved gross departures from traditional brahminical
norms. The new code legalized intercaste marriage, sanctioned divorce
and prohibited polygamy, and gave the daughter the same right of
inheritance as the son.

But Muslim personal law, curiously enough, was left virtually untouched.
Rather, a section of Muslim leaders claimed that Indian Muslims had a
right to be governed by Muslim laws based on scriptures in matters such
as marriage, divorce, maintenance, child custody, inheritance and the
like, which followed directly from their religious faith and was
therefore covered by the freedom of religion guaranteed by Article 25.

Contrary to popular perceptions that the Muslim community in India has
remained steadfast in its resistance to modernization, during the early
decades of the 20th century the Jamiyat ul Ulama i Hind of Deoband,
known for its closeness to the Congress, took the lead in demanding
reform of Muslim religious laws and institutions. It assailed certain
local and customary practices prevalent among sections of Muslims as
un-Islamic and inequitous, and called for replacing them with a uniform
Muslim personal law.

This reform campaign culminated in the enactment of the Shariat Act in
1937. Yet on the eve of the Partition, the same Jamiyat leaders, largely
to combat Muslim League propaganda, sought - and got - an assurance from
Jawaharlal Nehru that Muslim law would remain beyond th scope of state
intervention. It was against this backdrop that Nehru, keeping his
modernizing zeal in suspended animation, persuaded the constituent
assembly to put the subject of a uniform civil code in the list of
directive principles.

This quid pro quo in the shape of a constitutional convention, which
left its indelible mark on state action in India, ran counter to all the
desiderata of secularism - including the modifications brought about by
the founding fathers. It constituted a departure from the principle of
sarvadharmasamabhava, and produced the bizarre scenario of the majority
complaining about unfair treatment by the state.

An impression gained ground that freedom of religion could be invoked
exclusively for the minorities, while in case of the majority it could
be set aside by the state at its sweet will. After all, both Hindus and
Muslims regarded their respective personal laws to be scripturally
sanctioned. Yet Hindus alone were made to forgo their claim under the
state's dispensation.

But from the standpoint of the members of the Muslim community -
particularly its women - this understanding could be construed as a
negation of equality in that they had been denied the benefits of
reform, and left to suffer the diktat of an obscurantist leadership.

So the "reformist" Indian state, paradoxically enough, virtually became
an ally of social conservatism which not only came in handy for the
Hindu rightist forces to set Hindu communal passions aflame but also
enabled the majoritarian, assimilationist sangh parivar to pose as the
champion of gender justice within the Muslim community.

The right of conversion implied in the freedom to propagate one's
religion (Article 25) has given a further propaganda handle to the
Hindutva brigade. The original draft of this article contained no
reference to the right to propagate; it was included later, to
accommodate the demand of the small Christian community in the
constituent assembly.

K.M. Munshi, member of the drafting committee, pointed out that the
Indian Christians had given up their demand for separate reservations
but laid great emphasis on this condition not because they wanted to
convert people aggressively, but because the word "propagation" was a
fundamental part of their religion. The Supreme Court however ruled in
the 1977 Stanislaus case that the right to propagate did not include the
right to convert.

A.N. Ray, the chief justice, asserted what Article 25 granted was the
right to transmit or spread one's own religion by an exposition of its
tenets, and any claim to the right to convert was sure to impinge on the
freedom of conscience guaranteed by Article 25(1). To be sure, the court
delivered the verdict while dealing with the question of coercive
conversion; nonetheless, the issue became grist to the Hindutva mill.

Constitutionally speaking then, the malady of secularism in India lay in
the tension between the conception of the state as an agent of
socio-religious reform and that of minority rights, supposedly immune
from the long arm of an intrusive state. The political philosopher,
Bhikhu Parekh, has pertinently observed that the framers of the
Constitution, assuming that India had minorities but not a majority,
sought to nurture the former's cultural self-expression but not the
latter's, and allowed the minorities to act as collective agents while
ignoring the real and fraught possibility of the majority becoming
integrated and acting as a collective body.

The unanticipated, however, has happened, and those who appear to treat
the secular credo embedded in our Constitution as a holy cow and are
anxious to save it from the onslaught of the Hindu right would do well
to remember that the atypical variant of secularism envisaged by the
founding fathers together with the hiatus between the constitutional
provisions and their implementation delineated above contributed in no
small measure towards shaping the monster of majoritarianism.

These questions, need to be addressed rather than simply brushed aside,
and a post-Nehruvian consensus has to be forged. This is no plea for
embracing the sangh parivar's version of "positive secularism" whatever
that may mean. The point is that an attempt to foreclose the debate on
secularism would certainly not augur well for its future in India.

The author is senior lecturer, department of political science, Kalyani
University =20

=A9 Hindustantimes.com
_______

#3.

Indian Express
6 June 2000
Op-Ed.

ET TU, RSS?

by Kuldip Nayar

When political organisations change their stand, they show not so much
their exasperation as the weakening of resolve. They seek a compromise.
The RSS is doing the same thing. At one time, the state of Jammu and
Kashmir was inviolable for it. Murli Manohar Joshi was sent to Srinagar
to fly the national flag at the Lal Chowk. Although he was humiliated
when he hoisted the flag with the help of the Army, both he and the RSS
accepted the spectacle. They wanted to prove the point that Srinagar
represented the state which was part of India. Today it has resiled from
that position.

The RSS has come round to favouring the division of the state into three
regions: the Hindu-majority Jammu, the Buddhist-majority Ladakh and the
Muslim-majority Valley. True, its Hindutva philosophy leads it to drive
a wedge between the Hindus and the Muslims. But it does not see beyond
its nose. The division on religious lines weakens the case of Kashmiri
pandits who want to return to their homes. The secular character of the
state becomes a question mark. It suits the fundamentalist Muslims.

How does it benefit the state or the country? And what does the RSS get
out of it?

New Delhi has always opposed the division on the basis of religion
because it defeats the very secular ethos of India. Is there a change in
the Centre's policy? Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee owes an
explanation to the country because the RSS his soul, as he has declared
many a time advocates the separation of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists in
the state.

The state's division will only provide grist to the propaganda mills
that the Muslims, even after living for 52 years in secular India, want
to live separate from non-Muslim regions of Jammu and Ladakh. How do the
constituents of the ruling National Democratic Alliance reconcile their
secular approach to a purely communal formation?

The proposal of division was mooted by the editor of an Urdu daily in
Lahore many years ago. He wanted the Valley to merge with Pakistan. His
emphasis was on the separation of Muslims from the non-Muslims.

A similar proposal to divide the state was made by Punjab (Pakistan)
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to Punjab (India) Chief Minister Parkash
Singh Badal at their meeting held during Prime Minister Vajpayee's visit
to Pakistan. What was significant was that the Lahore process of amity
had not changed the old thinking that the Muslims by virtue of their
religion had to come to Pakistan and non-Muslims to India.

Pakistan has always held that the Hindus and the Muslims are two
separate nations. Since the subcontinent was divided on that basis, the
Muslim-majority Kashmir was theirs. By supporting the division of J&K,
the RSS is unwittingly endorsing the Pakistan line. No doubt, the RSS is
all for the Hindu Rashtriyata but as of today, it has not subscribed to
the two-nation theory. Why is it playing into the hands of
separatists?That Hurriyat chief Ali Shah Gillani should talk in terms of
the state's division on religious lines is not surprising. He has always
been advocating Kashmir's merger with Pakistan.

Why should the RSS give credibility to his scheme? It is also surprising
that youthful leaders like Yasin Malik, who believe in Kashmiriyat, the
state's secular ethos, have not contradicted Gillani. Is it the official
policy of the Hurriyat, as he has claimed in a statement, with which
they have concurred? They may have a point.

Hindu nationalist feelings are being fostered to submerge other
identities and communities. The RSS has done the greatest damage to our
pluralistic society. But they do not realise the depth of our secular
feelings.

Our attitude was firmed up when the country was fighting its battle for
independence. The national movement knew no religion, no caste and no
language. It was a war in which all participated with one purpose: to
throw out the alien rulers. The ethos, the distinctive feature of the
struggle, was togetherness, the spirit of understanding. That was
precisely the basis of our Constitution which, amo-ng other things,
enunciated in the preamble: "Liberty of th-ought, expression, belief,
faith and wo- rship." Although India, after Partition, had some 82 per
cent Hindus inhabiting it, yet it did not declare itself a Hindu
country. That was not the ideal. The freedom movement kept religion
separate from politics.

Some who did not believe in that ethos embarked on their agenda to
convert India into a theocratic state from the day the British left. But
Mahatma Ga-ndhi's assassination at the hands of a Hindu fanatic gave
such a jolt to the nation that it asserted itself to regain the
territory which the communalists had usurped. The Hindu chauvinists ran
for shelter. India heaved a sigh of relief for almost 45 years.

But the point to consider is how the BJP or, for that matter, the RSS,
has spread all over the country in the last two decades? Does it mean
that our secularism was skin-deep or does it mean that the communal
forces are getting stre-ngthened day by day?

India takes pride in the fact that it is secular. Pakistan has not been
able to extricate itself from the outmoded concept of theocracy in which
it has got stuck despite the enunciation by its founder Mohammed Ali
Jinnah after Partition that the Muslims and the Hindus in the
subcontinent had ceased to be religious entities and had become Indians
and Pakistanis. But India too seems to be drifting. We find that either
in the name of `forced conversion' or the threat of being swamped by
minorities, the liberal ethos is sought to be diluted. The
intelligentsia is getting contaminated. This is what we criticise in
Pakistan.

When a Pakistan Urdu poet, Fah-imda Riaz, recently recited her poem at
the JNU campus in Delhi, chiding Indians that "you have turned to be
like us", she was probably right. Still she was hooted by a small
section of the audience, a few Hindu chauvinists and a couple of army
men. They objected to her statement that India had become a carbon-copy
of Pakistan in communalism and parochialism. Hers was an expression of
anguish.

During the seven years she took shelter in Delhi to escape the military
rule of General Zia-ul-Haq, she would extol India for fighting against
the saffronists and casteists. The present atmosphere in the country
made her feel that the shadows were lengthening in India as well. Not
many would like what she said but there is no doubting the danger of
revivalism India faces.

In this atmosphere, it is no surprise that many in India should think of
dividing the state into three regions. This proposal has been talked
about by some think tanks of India and the US. The purpose is to
facilitate the merger of Jammu and Ladakh with India and the Valley with
Pakistan. That the RSS has also been roped in is a surprise.

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

______

#4.

Indian Express
6 June 2000
Op-Ed.

MUSLIM POLITICS LEAD TO A DEAD-END

by Mohamed Sajjad

Politics is essential for the survival of any group. In a world where
``harmony of interest'' is a myth and ``conflict of interests'' a
reality, politics is a tool for empowerment and is something that `good'
people should not avoid. This is specially true in the case of
minorities, women, Dalits, peasants, workers, and so on, who receive
negligible State support and figure at the bottom of the socio-economic
hierarchy. A genuine democracy means that every section of the
population should have a proportional share in the power-structure. And
if this is not the case then the state should be persuaded to make it
so.

History testifies to the fact that it has always been the politically
articulate sections which have influenced policy-making and
decision-making. The entire drama is about representation. Having said
this, let us see how Muslim politics manifested itself in India. It was
because of the limitations imposed by 19th century politics that the
agenda for Muslim advancement had a feudal and elite content.
Subsequently, history turned insane and the separatist politics of the
feudal elite, both Muslims and Hindus, as well as the tactical failure
of the Congress, resulted in the debacle known as Partition.

The Muslim leadership left behind in India could not redefine its role
within a secular-democratic polity. It paid only lip-service to the
redefined post-1947 India, while zealously retaining the feudal and
aristocratic style of political functioning. In its scheme of things,
there was no space for the genuine articulation and mobilisation of the
Muslim masses. No wonder then that Muslim politics since Partition has
been largely symbolic/emotive. It had no connection with the poor Muslim
masses, and was blatantly anti-democratic and patriarchal. What's worse,
it lacked a forward-looking perspective.

The sterility of this kind of politics, coupled with the
chauvinist-fundamentalist, grassroots Hindutva politics finally led to
the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Indeed this event is redefining
India once again.

Indian Muslims must come face-to-face with new realities. They must
reckon with developments like globalisation, the unprecedented growth of
the media and the info-tech revolution. They must learn to utilise these
opportunities to ensure a minimum prosperity for ordinary people. All
this calls for a new brand of politics which represents Islam as a
universal and dynamic socio-politico-economic idea.

So what should the future agenda for Indian Muslims be? What they need
is the emergence of an intellectual force which can counter anti-Muslim
propaganda and articulate the grievances of Muslims everywhere. They
also need an honest, far-sighted and assertive political leadership
which can conscientise and sensitise the Muslim masses through
grassroots activism. These are the change-agents who must go beyond the
politics of the pulpit.

There is also a great need to incorporate the youth in all this, so that
their natural idealism and immense energy can be channelised to
appropriate ends. This means targeting universities in general and
minority institutions in particular.

It is here that institutions like the Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia
Millia Islamia and Muslim theological seminaries should play a decisive
role. Unfortunately these institutions have miserably failed to do this
because of an undemocratic administration and the intellectual
bankruptcy of their faculty members. Inarticulate, self-seeking student
unions have certainly not helped the situation.

Ultimately, any hope for the future rests on the emergence of new
thinking. The time has come for Muslims in this country to decide how
they wish to shape their future. If they do not do this, history will
pronounce it own verdict. And it will read: Guilty.

The writer is a fellow at the Centre of Advanced Study, Department of
History, Aligarh Muslim University

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

#5.

[THE BELOW REQUEST WAS CIRCULATED ON ANOTHER LIST AND IS BEING REPOSTED
HERE FOR WIDER CIRCULATION. IT WOULD BE GOOD ANY ONE COULD TO EXTEND
SUPPORT TO THIS SCHOLAR IN HIS ENDEAVOUR]

[6 June 2000]
=46rom: sharmeen obaid <sharmeenobaid@h...>

Hi my name is Sharmeen Obaid and im doing my bachelors in Political Science
from Smith College in Northampton, MA. Im doing my thesis on the Refugee
settlement of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. My areas of focus
include trends in migration. I want to explore the reasons why some families
chose to migrate and others didnt? which families were divided and what
difficulties were faced by those who made the journey on either side. Im
looking to interview families first hand to aid my thesis.
Im wondering if anyone can help me by giving me names, email addresses
and/or phone numbers of families who have gone through these experiences in
both India and Pakistan so that i can get in touch with them.

Any help will be very appreciated as i have to start work on it this summer.
Thank you so much
Sharmeen

You can get in touch with me either on this email address or at
sobaid@s...

______

#6.

Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Avenue -- 12th floor
New York, NY 10001
phone: 212-465-1004
fax: 212-465-9568

June 5, 2000

Her Excellency Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
President, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo-1
Sri Lanka

VIA FAX: 011-94-1-333-703

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes your government's
decision to lift the prior censorship requirement for foreign media, but is
deeply disturbed that the censorship regulations remain in place and that
restrictions on local media continue.

The emergency regulations were imposed on May 3, following critical military
advances by rebel forces of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Even before these advances, however, Sri Lankan authorities routinely denied
journalists access to conflict areas, thus hampering their ability to report
on the war.

Under the terms of the emergency regulations, censorship was imposed on all
media. While foreign correspondents based in Sri Lanka are no longer
required to submit their stories to a censor, "the government also expects
that the foreign media would act with a sense of responsibility complying
with the regulation," according to the text of today's government statement,
carried by the Reuters news agency.

Local journalists have been subject to censorship provisions since June
1998, but the new regulations give the government the power to arrest
journalists, seize their property, block the distribution of newspapers, and
shut down printing presses on broadly defined grounds of "national
security." Local journalists have told CPJ that these are the most draconian
censorship provisions ever enacted in Sri Lanka.

Already, two newspapers have been shut down under the regulations: On May
19, authorities closed the offices of Uthayan, the only Tamil daily
published in the northern city of Jaffna. On May 22, police shut down a
printing plant belonging to Leader Publications (Pvt.) Ltd., which owns the
English-language daily The Sunday Leader, in order to stop the paper's
publication.

By closing down the printing press, authorities have also effectively
suppressed Irida Peramuna, a Sinhala-language sister publication of The
Sunday Leader, which has not been cited for any offense, according to Leader
Publications.

CPJ finds it alarming that Sri Lankan residents now have less access to news
and information about the civil war than people living outside the country.
As an organization of journalists dedicated to the defense of press freedom
around the world, we repeat our urgent call for Your Excellency to lift all
censorship restrictions immediately, and ensure that journalists are allowed
to report freely in the conflict zones.

We thank you for your attention to this urgent matter, and await your
response.

Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director

cc:
South Asian Journalists Association
American Society of Newspaper Editors
Amnesty International
Article 19 (United Kingdom)
Artikel 19 (The Netherlands)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
=46reedom Forum
=46reedom House
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Center for Journalists
International Federation of Journalists
International PEN
International Press Institute
Harold Hongju Koh, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human
Rights, and Labor
Alain Modoux, Director, UNESCO Freedom of Expression Program
The Newspaper Guild
The North American Broadcasters Association
Overseas Press Club
Reporters Sans Fronti=E8res
Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The Society of Professional Journalists
World Association of Newspapers
World Press Freedom Committee
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