[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 21 Sept. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
21 September 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

#1. On Bengali immigrants in Pakistan (Time Asia)
#2. India=92s Plural Culture, Secular Democracy -- Challenge & Opportunity
(Statement by John Dayal to the Hearings of the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom)
#3. 'Muslim societies are quite out of tune with the times' (Mushirul Hasan=
)
=20
-----------------------------------

#1.

TIME Asia story=20=20=20=20
SEPTEMBER 25, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 12=20=20
=20=20=20=20
=20=20=20
Piers Benatar.
Bangladeshi refugees in a women's shelter in Karachi.
=20=20=20=20
YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE
BENGALI IMMIGRANTS IN PAKISTAN NOW WISH THEY'D NEVER LEFT BANGLADESH

By HANNAH BLOCH Islamabad=20
=20
When Almas Bahar Begum came to Pakistan 22 years ago, she was looking for
a better life than the one she left behind in Bangladesh. She eventually
raised seven children in Pakistan, but now, sitting on the floor of her
family's two-room, tin-roofed house in a Karachi slum, she says it would
have been better if she had never come. Tragedy struck last year when Almas
Bahar's son Jaffar Ali, a fisherman, died after being jailed when he
refused to pay a bribe to the police. Since his death, she has looked after
Jaffar Ali's five children. "There is no future for them here," says the
gray-haired grandmother. "The only solution is that I return to Bangladesh.=
"=20
=20
But that may be impossible. In the years immediately following the 1971
civil war that created Bangladesh from what was formerly East Pakistan,
hundreds of thousands of Bengalis, most of them illiterate laborers,
migrated to Pakistan. Until several years ago, there was ample incentive:
the Pakistani economy was doing relatively well while Bangladesh was an
economic basket case. Now that Pakistan has fallen on hard times and
Bangladesh is enjoying the fruits of liberalization and political
stability, some refugees are trying to return. But overcrowded Bangladesh
(pop. 130 million) is reluctant to take them. "The Bangladeshi government
is not willing to accept people who say, 'I am Bangladeshi,'" complains Zia
Ahmad Awan, a human rights lawyer in Karachi. "This is ridiculous. They
want to deny this whole issue."
=20
Perhaps 2 million Bengalis live in Pakistan illegally. At least 1 million
reside in Karachi alone, spread out over 82 neighborhoods. They have become
a vital part of the city's melting pot, working in the fishing and
carpet-weaving industries and as domestic servants. But their illegal
status means they face frequent police harassment, blackmail and sexual
abuse=97all without recourse, as they fear being arrested as aliens. "It is
the hobby of police to arrest Bangladeshis," says Syed Muhammad Kazmi, a
Karachi social worker. "When the fishermen come home, police know they have
money and raid their houses. They take the women and children to extort
money."
=20
Female immigrants face the greatest dangers. Hundreds of Bengali women
have been forced into prostitution in Pakistan, and some have even been
sold into slavery. Since the early 1990s, agents have brought women to
Pakistan either by force or with promises of marriage and work. Once in
Pakistan, "they are like chattel being sold," says Awan. Although such
trafficking has declined in recent years due to stricter border controls,
many Bengali women remain in Pakistan against their will. Consider the case
of Anwari Begum, who as a teenager in Dhaka was drugged and brought to
Pakistan's Punjab province 10 years ago. After a six-month journey across
India, the girl was put up for auction with 50 other Bengali women. All but
four were sold. Her husband purchased Anwari for $1,800, and after an
on-the-spot marriage ceremony and a payoff to the police, her new life
began. She ran away a year ago, after her husband beat her. Now living in a
Karachi women's shelter with her two children, Anwari, 28, wants to go home
to Bangladesh. But she cannot afford the $210 for a one-way ticket to
Dhaka. Even if she could, she has no passport, and obtaining a travel
permit would require the help of a middleman who would charge an additional
$150.=20
=20
Dhaka says it will accept anyone who can prove Bangladeshi citizenship.
But it considers many Bengalis who emigrated and made lives for themselves
across the border to be Pakistani. "My family doesn't know where I am,"
Anwari says in strongly accented Urdu. "I'm stuck here, I can't go back."=20
=20
A thousand kilometers away, another immigrant group is desperate to move
the other way, to get out of Bangladesh and into Pakistan. The Biharis,
Urdu-speaking Indians who migrated in 1947 to East Pakistan from the Indian
state of Bihar, favored the wrong side during the the 1971 war. To protect
them from retaliation after the fighting, authorities herded more than
300,000 into refugee camps. About 100,000 managed to make it to Pakistan
illegally, but more than 200,000 remain in the camps today=97a nuisance to
Bangladesh and an embarrassment to Pakistan, which has repatriated only a
few thousand, citing lack of funds. At a press conference in New York last
week, Pakistan's military leader, General Pervez Musharraf, dismissed the
idea of repatriating more: "I do not want to add to our difficulties. We
have enough of them as it is." Islamabad fears the Biharis' presence would
increase ethnic tensions, especially in troubled Sindh province, which
already has a volatile ethnic mix. For now, the Biharis will stay put=97jus=
t
like most of the Bengalis stuck in Pakistan.
=20
With reporting by Ghulam Hasnain/Karachi and Farid Hossain/Dhaka=20

______

#2.

Statement at the Hearings of the US Commission on International Religious
Freedom,=20
Washington, 18 September 2000

INDIA=92S PLURAL CULTURE, SECULAR DEMOCRACY -- CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY

100 CASES OF HATE CRIMES AND PHYSICAL VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN
JANUARY - SEPTEMBER 2000

By John Dayal

Human Rights and Religious Freedom activist
505 Media apartments, Link Society
18 IP Extension, Delhi 110092, India
email: johndayal@v...,, johndayal@m...
phone 00 91 11 2722262, mobile 009811021072
fax; 91 11 2726582

=85=85=85.

I thank you for inviting me to these hearings of the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom.=20
There are serious reservations in India on the timing and nature of these
hearings. Some feel that these hearings will embarrass the Prime Minister
of India, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is currently visiting the US. There
is also a perception, shared among others by those in government, and some
political parties as well as a few in religious leadership positions, that
these hearings are tantamount to interference in India=92s internal affairs=
.
The nationalistic political and peer pressure is such as to make even many
in the churches to say that they would not participate in the hearings even
if they were to be invited.
I personally have been under pressure, from `friends=92 as well as wishers =
in
political, academic, media and religious circles not to participate in the
hearings. I have been forcefully and persuasively `advised=92 not to hurt
India=92s national interests. Many believe that this is the jurisdiction of
the United Nations, and not of the United States. Many also believe that
these hearings will serve no purpose for several reasons -- among them the
fact that it is the Nuclear question and NOT Human rights which tops the US
agenda in India, now seen as a political and strategic ally, a potential
market, and home to the world=92s best computer brains.
I am not a politician, but as an Indian, I understand and honor these
sentiments and share with my fellow countrymen and women their fierce
national spirit and patriotism. We reject any sanctions against our
country. We abhor anything that will mar the flow of development funds and
investment to India, which at the thresh-hold of a new future. We merely
seek the implementation Constitutional guarantees, the rule of Law.
My work in religious freedom issues is my personal response and assertion
of patriotism. My work in Human rights and religious liberty in India has
brought me many personal threats. The Indian National Human Rights
Commission has ordered the government of India to provide me security in
view of the threats to my life and my liberty. Currently, I have two
plainclothes armed bodyguards who accompany me when I am in New Delhi.
I have agreed to participate in these hearings in my personal capacity for
many reasons, the most important of which is to use this opportunity to
reach out to the powerful and vibrant Indian community in the United States
for their support. They, more than anyone else, have in their power to
influence political processes, government and policy not in Washington but
back home in India to ensure that true freedom of faith continues to be
nurtured in our great and wonderful Motherland. As ambassadors at large for
India, they must tell the powers that be, in New Delhi and in the capitals
of the Indian States, just how important it is for the government to ensure
that minorities not only be safe, but FEEL secure in Rule of Law.
Another reason is that some organizations of the Sangh parivar such as the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad are seeking recognition in the bodies of the United
Nations. Such recognition will clothe these fountainheads of hate and
malice in a cloak of respectability. The international community must learn
of the truth behind their masks.
I have committed my life to doing work for the strengthening of India=92s
abiding tradition of a secular democracy and plural culture. I believe that
the health of any democracy can be gauged in health and freedom of its
minorities, be they religious, linguistic or ethnic. India has a strong
democratic tradition. The Christian community is a mere 2.3 per cent, down
from 2.9 per cent from when India became independent in 1947. Since 0052 AD
when St. Thomas first brought the Liberating Good News of Our Lord to the
shore of my homeland, we have lived in peace and in a dialogue of life with
our neighbors, most of them devout and God-fearing Hindus. They remain our
friends, our allies and our protectors. The Indian Constitution, amongst
the best in the world, enshrined these in letters of gold, giving us
Freedom to Profess, Practice and Propagate, our faith.=20
I have come here to give witness to this strength of the Indian
Constitution. We, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and others,
remain committed to a common endeavor to ensures that nothing is done by
any group, any party, any government to erode the spirit and letter of this
constitution. It is back home in India that persons such as me continue
this struggle - to ensure that the shadow of neo fascism, bigotry and
political exclusivity which preaches a frightening doctrine of One nation,
One people, One Culture does not drown the Pluralism of India.
The issues I will speak of are aberrations, which loom large on the horizon
of the minorities now, but which I hope will be but a fleeting nightmare in
India=92s 5000 year old civilization, soon to be forgotten if heed the
earnings of the moment.
India is a signatory to the Charter of the United Nations, and to its
resolutions on Human Rights and religious freedom. The governments of the
day and the people have always articulated their concern whenever there was
a violation of human rights or religious freedom anywhere in the world. We
have protested the massacres in Africa, the violence in Europe and the
Human rights violations of the Tibetans in China, the Tamils in Sri Lanka,
of the common people in Mynmar, and of the people of Indian origin in Fiji.
The deposed prime minister of Fiji, who is of Indian origin, was feted
recently in India by the government with honors befitting a Head of
Government.
This is as is proper. The world is a global village and human rights and
religious freedom are not bound by barriers of national boundary. Each one
of us feels for our fellow human being, created like us in the Image of
god. That is why I speak. Without fear of repercussions.
I will not dwell on numbers of dead and injured. Statistics really mean
nothing in a country as large as India, with a billion people. We do not
say every death of a Christian has a `communal=92 angle. That is for the
authorities to find out, to investigate not just the crime but the pattern
of crimes against the Christian community since 1998 in particular. But
those who spew hate, those who foment the hate campaign are not anonymous.
The speeches of their leaders, the literature and the training of their
cadres are well documented in secular India. We believe the Ideology of
Hate is at the root of the violence against Christians in particular and
minorities in General. Hate kills as surely as any gun or sword. If
anything, its wounds are deeper, more difficult to heal for they sear the
psyche.
The words Hindutva and Sangh Parivar will appear in my presentation. I make
a sharp distinction between Hinduism the religion and Hindutva the
political philosophy of the Sangh parivar, as I make a distinction between
the government of the day and its political masters on the one hand, and
the people of India on the other. The Hindus are a great people.
Repeatedly, in many elections, the people have rejected the thesis of
Hindutva. Political parties that have preached hatred against the Muslims
and the Christians have been restrained. Parties banking on religious
sentiments have never been allowed to get a majority in Parliament. They
have not been allowed to reach a strength where they can alter the
Constitution to dilute the secular guarantees. Civil society is also
witnessing a great movement in which secular India has stood up against
attacks on the Christian community. In the face of the fact that often we
have seen the Union government and the state governments refusing to show
the required political will to act decisively to stop the atmosphere of
hate that is being deliberately created through falsehood and half truths,
the response we are seeing on the part of the common Indian people is
significant. We wish this voice of sanity to be louder. We believe this
will happen, that mainstream India will totally reject and defeat the
marginal Hindutva groups that foment the hate, and mastermind the violence.=
=20
This violence will end only when there is the political will, and when the
highest in the land make it clear that India will not tolerate hate
campaigns against Christians, that it will not tolerate Hate crimes against
the Minorities.=20
-----------------=20=09=09

THE FASCIST AND NAZI ROOTS OF IDEOLOGY OF HATE:=20
The founder of modern India and its first Prime Minster, the great
Jawaharlal Nehru identified the Sangh Parivar right from the beginning, and
pointed out to these organizations as communalist and fascist. The scholar
Marzia Casorali in her definitive study `Hindutva=92s foreign tie-up in the
1930s - Archival Evidence=92 traced the movement=92s inspiration to Benito
Mussolini and to Adolf Hitler in the 1920s and subsequently. She writes:
=93an accurate search =85 is bound to show the extent and importance of suc=
h
organizations and Italian fascism. (They) not only adopted fascist ideas in
a conscious way, but this also happened because of the direct contacts
between their representatives of these organizations and fascist Italy.=94
Casorali quotes from Mr. V Savarkar, Mr. BS Moonje, Mr. Golwalkar, the
founders of the Hindutva ideology. In 1934 they said =93this ideal cannot b=
e
brought to effect unless we have our own swaraj with a Hindu as a dictator
like Shivaji of old or Mussolini or Hitler of the present day in Italy and
Germany. The Savarkar-led Hindu Mahasabha in 1939 officially stated:
Germany=92s crusade against the enemies of Aryan culture will bring all the
Aryan nations of the world to their senses and awaken the Indian Hindus for
the restoration of their lost glory.=92 I need not go on quoting from
archival research. The same thesis is being taught in towns and villages,
study camps and morning drills of the Sangh parivar today. The present
leaders of the scores of frontal organizations of the Sangh Parivar are on
record mouthing similar imprecations as they demonise the Christian and
Muslim communities for the ills of India, and speak of what anywhere else
would be called ethnic cleansing. It does not surprise me that the man Dara
Singh, who led the mobs that burnt alive the Australian leprosy worker
graham Stuart Staines, and his two children Timothy and Philip, in the
forests of the state of Orissa in January 1999 is today sought to be
deified as a Defender of the Faith, a God descended on earth. Millions of
copies of his speech =93I Dara Speak=94 have been published and circulated
widely to rouse passions in India. It is in the tradition of the Sangh
literature, which describes `Muslims, Christians and Communists as the main
enemies of India.=92
RE-WRITING OF HISTORY: More dangerous is perhaps the rewriting of history
that has been undertaken in a large way in India. Indian scholars have
expressed their deep concern that books now being prepared under the
patronage of the Parivar, often with the tacit support of government, are
presenting the past in a manner as to incite hatred against the Christians
and Muslims. These books are not for voluntary reading -- many of them form
part of compulsory curricula in schools in several states of the Indian
union. The damage to the child=92s mind can be gauged. Its implications for
the future should make people shudder.
SUBORNING THE POLICE AND ADMINISTRATION: Accompanying this is an serious
effort to pack various segments of the official machinery, including the
administration and the police forces, with those who believe in this
ideology. The representation of Muslims and Christians in police forces has
been grossly inadequate; a point referred to in commissions of inquiry
ordered by the government itself. It is not surprising that the Justice Sri
Krishna Commission of enquiry which investigated the anti-Muslim violence
in the city of Bombay in 1992-93 indicted the city police of conniving with
the killers. Other enquiry commissions of the past have similarly indicted
police forces of a communal bias. In a blatant challenge to secular India,
the State of Gujarat - site of the destruction of more than 30 churches in
1998, and home of Mahatma Gandhi - last year made a serious effort to
encourage its police and administration officials to join the Rashtriya
Swayamsewak Sangh, the mother organization of the Sangh Parivar. The
government order had the support of the highest ministers in the central
government. The nation was outraged. The order was withdrawn after a
vigorous protest by the sane majority. Nonetheless, several judicial
officers and directors general of police have joined the Sangh Parivar
after retiring from government service. It is a moot question how unbiased
they were when they were in uniform, or sat on the Bench. It is a matter of
record that few, if any, of those responsible for anti-Muslim or
anti-Christian violence have ever been punished under the law.
HATE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHRISTIANS: Muslims and Christians are the main
targets of a very focused, deeply organized and well-funded hate campaign
throughout India. Islam and Christianity are branded as alien religions,
and Hindus and Buddhists are constantly exhorted to give a united `Asian=92
challenge to these faiths. It is forgotten that both Islam and Christianity
were born on the soil of Asia. The patriotism and loyalty to the motherland
of minority groups is constantly being questioned. Muslims are branded as
agents of Pakistan, a country with India has fought four wars since
Independence. Their Babri mosque was demolished in 1992 in a symbolic
gesture of `correcting historical wrongs=92. The demolition has seared the
psyche of the nation, and brought death, destruction and pain in its
aftermath. The wounds are yet to heal.
The hate campaign against Christians questions our roots, attacks the
tenets of our faith, targets our priests and nuns, institutions and social
work. Despite 20 centuries of Christianity in India, the Sangh Parivar
pillories the community as a remnant of the British colonial empire.
Senior members of the parivar, including some who are in the current Union
government as Ministers or head various frontal organizations, mock Virgin
Birth, blaspheme against the Resurrection. Official organs of the Sangh
parivar, including the English language Organizer and the Hindi language
journal Panchjanya, rail against the community and its faith on a regular
basis. These journals are the basic literature used in the formation of the
cadres of the Sangh Parivar.=20
The main charge is that Indian Christians use foreign funds to convert
Hindus by force and fraud. Senior ministers have taken part in this
campaign of falsehood. We have repeatedly asked the government to come up
with figures of how much money is being received by various groups -
Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and the government itself - from the US and
other western or eastern nations, and how this money is being spent. Under
India=92s legal regulations on foreign remittances and donations, the
government of India has all this data. But it has refused to give the full
list. Systematic leaks of partial information has been cunningly used to
make it seem that all the money is coming to Christians and is being used
by them for forcible conversions. In fact the very term missionary has been
absurdly used to imply that there are tens of thousands of White Christian
missionaries are work in India. Government=92s own figures show that there
are just over 1,000 foreigners, including priests and teachers, in
Christian institutions in India. Most of them are old, and have been living
in India for decades. Their number is rapidly dwindling by death, and by
the fact that the government has systematically denied extensions of their
visas without giving any valid reason. Almost all Christian evangelist
workers of all denominations are Indians, born and bred, Indian citizens
and yet the image is created of a foreign army of missionaries converting
innocent people.
The Indian National Commission for Minorities during the chairmanship of
the jurist Mr. Tahir Mehmood, repeatedly urged Union and state governments
to come up with official statistics on the number of forcible conversions,
or conversions by fraud and inducement, recorded in their states in recent
years. Not one state could authenticate a single allegation of forced or
induced conversion. Yet, the lie is perpetrated, and used to target the
Christian community. Little wonder that when the Nuns were ganged raped in
the forests of Jhabua, Mr. Baikunth Lal Sharma Prem, a leading light of the
Bajrang Dal, said =93They deserved to be raped.=94
MISUSE OF LAW: For many years, this lie was given legal sanction in the so
called Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (challenged by secular NGOs as
well as by us) and has been used by the authorities to harass Christian Non
Governmental Organizations (NGOs), churches, and Institutions.=20
The Visa regulations are used in a discriminatory fashion. It is almost
impossible for a foreign Christian church worker, preacher or evangelist to
come to India unless it is as a tourist. In contrast, Indian non-Christian
missionaries roam the world preaching about their religion, and the Sangh
parivar itself proudly speaks of the evangelizing effort of its monks and
`saints=92 in all parts of the world, including the United states, a favori=
te
destination of these people.
There are recorded cases of inordinately long time taken to process
applications for land for new churches, cemeteries, and institutions. There
have been cases where existing buildings are threatened with demolition,
and there are cases where even after allotment of land, Church authorities
have not been able to even get the plot of land measured out on the ground.
Surveyors have been chased away from the site, even in the national capital
of New Delhi. The state of Uttar Pradesh recently sought to bring forth new
legislation to curb the construction of mosques, Islamic schools called
madarsas and churches. it claimed that the madarsas were being used to
train terrorists. The legislation was aborted in the faces of a united
national protest.
Christian schools are under considerable stress. Nuns and priests and
secular management=92s are being constantly harassed and questioned in high=
ly
bigoted surveys about the sources of their funded and whether they
represent foreign interests. Across the country, the police and civil
authorities under different pretexts periodically order such surveys.=20
The Muslim community had documented how the dreaded National Security Act
and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, TADA, have been misused
against them. There is an effort to target Christian activists too. So
overwhelming and all-pervasive is the fear that many in the church
leadership are afraid to speak, lest their patriotism be questioned, or
their institutions are targeted.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION: There is persistent effort to negate, dilute
and contain the Constitutional guarantees of the Preamble of the
Constitution - the Freedom of Faith - and in various Articles, specially in
Articles 25 through 30. These articles assure the minorities freedom to
profess, practice and propagate their faith. The Fathers of the
Constitution recognized that the Propagation of faith, the spreading the
Good news of the Lord, was integral to the Indian Christian=92s freedom in
free India. Despite this three States - Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa, and
Madhya Pradesh -- years ago passed laws that put unacceptable restrictions
on freedom of faith. Ironically, these laws go under the generic name of
Freedom of religion Act. Gujarat has tried to enact such a law. At the
Union level, various luminaries of the Sangh Parivar have sought to bring
in legislation to curb Christians=92 right of propagation of faith. In a
major ruling, the Supreme Court of India has held that the right to convert
someone else is a fundamental right. But the courts have upheld the right
of any and all individuals to profess any religion, or change their
religion if they wish to. Recent amendments in the laws in Orissa impose
severe restrictions even this right of the individual, and make the local
policemen, bigoted as he is, the arbiter of whether a villager can, or
cannot, profess the faith of his choice.
We have challenged these laws in the courts of the land.
Mr. Fali Nariman, arguably India=92s foremost jurist and currently nominate=
d
by the President of India as member of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of
the Indian Parliament, notes: =93It is not necessary that the right to be
convert be declared fundamental, simply because the right to be converted
(emphasis Mr. Nariman=92s) to a different religious persuation - a matter o=
f
free volition and choice - is basic to one=92s spiritual existence. No one
can deny it. It is recognized in the Universal declaration of Human Rights
(1948) which proclaims that everyone has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion, which right includes the =93freedom to change one=
=92s
religion or belief.=92 This is also reproduced in Article 18 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which India
ratified in 1979. There are some rights so basic that they transcend
written Constitutions: as for instance the right to adopt a religion, or to
change one=92s religion: the right to marry and raise a family, and the rig=
ht
to choose not to do so. Such rights inhere in all human beings. No state
can presume to confer them, and no civilized State dare take them away.=94
The current Prime Minister of India, Mr. Vajpayee lost a historical
opportunity to heal inner wounds. In 1999 January. After seeing the debris
of the 30 or so churches destroyed by Hindutva gangs in the forests of the
Dangs district of south Gujarat, Mr. Vajpayee was widely expected, in
keeping with his image as a liberal, to denounce hose who had committed the
violence. Instead, he called for a national debate on conversions. The
Parivar then knew that it had the highest support in its actions
THE LEGALISED BIGOTRY AGAINST CHRISTIANS OF DALIT ORIGIN:
Perhaps the biggest assault on the secularism of the Constitution of India
has been in the official actions and attitude in relation to the Christians
of Dalit Origin, converts from what were once called the untouchable
castes. Estimates are that about 60 per cent of the Christians in India are
converts from these castes in the last five centuries, and mostly in the
last two centuries. This is not a forum to dwell on the plight in general
in India. Even today, Hindu Dalits are periodically massacred in the states
of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, are humiliated and tortured in Rajasthan,
Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, are discriminated against, their dignity
assaulted. The Dalits have articulated their story in the forums of the
United Nations., including the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights=
.
The Founding fathers of the Constitution recognized that the untouchables
were victims of a 3,000 year history. They enacted pro-active legislation
and sanctioned affirmative action to help these people to achieve dignity
and equality, giving them a level playing field. Reservations were kept in
government jobs for the Scheduled castes, as they were described in law, or
Dalits as many of them term themselves. Protective regulations banned
untouchability (though it did not ban the caste system which gave birth to
this untouchability) and prescribed punitive action against those
practicing it. The stigma of caste and accompanying infirmities affects
all these people irrespective of their religion - be they Hindus,
non-Hindus, atheists, or converts to Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and
Buddhism. A change in religion could internally heal them, but externally
brought no change in their social status and how high caste society
discriminated against them=20
While in many other countries, the first amendments to the Constitution
were to add to civil liberties and fundamental rights, the early amendment
in the Indian Constitution took away the rights of Dalits who did not
profess the Hindu faith. The Presidential Order of 1950 changed the law to
give the protection and strength of affirmative action only to Hindus, and
deny it to others. In affect, this communalised the law. It also violated
Constitutional provisions that there should be no discrimination on the
grounds of religion. The Sikh and Buddhist communities agitated for
decades before they were once again given the protection of the affirmative
action. Christians of Dalit origin have been denied these benefits despite
a long and extremely peaceful agitation. They must be given the same rights
as are given to their brethren of the Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist community,
for they suffer the same historical trauma. As Dr. James Massey, former
Member of the National Commission for Minorities, notes in a recent
statement : =93Does not the Presidential order of 1950 offer a legal
inducement for not renouncing Hinduism, reconversion to Hinduism by Dalits
and Scheduled castes?=94
OTHER LAPSES IN IMPLEMENTING CONSITITON:=20
Dr. James Massey has made significant disclosures from the report of a
high-powered Commission investigation that he chaired. He says =93Besides t=
he
attacks on the religious freedom of the national religious minorities, the
violation of the Constitutional cultural, educational and economic rights
of the minorities have been either curtailed or not implemented, both at
the central as well as the various state levels. This is particularly true
of Article 30, which gives the religious and linguistic minorities right to
establish and manage educational institutions according to their choice.
During the last 50 years from the time of the adoption of the Indian
Constitution, except the states of Tamil Nadu (which was forced by the High
court to implement Article 30 with regards to religious minority rights),
no other states in the country have cared to implement Article 30 fully.=94
THE VIOLENCE: Does it surprise anyone that there has been violence against
Christians? In 1997, I published the first Unofficial White Paper on
Violence against my community, following it up with a more detailed one in
September-October 1998. Since then, other colleagues have kept record. We
will soon publish the Unofficial White Paper of Anti-Christian Hate and
Violence 1997-2000. Unofficial, because the government does not want to
document the incidents and the pattern of violence against the Christian
community. The Union Home Minister, Mr. Lal Krishna Advani, has admitted in
Parliament that there has been a rise in such violence against Christians.
Newspaper headlines have said Mr. Advani has failed to explain why there
has been rise in such violence. Persistently, the official machinery has
labeled them as `isolated incidents=92 denying there is a pattern. It has
held criminal gangs responsible for every incident, refusing to explain why
criminal gangs have turned against Churches, priests and Nuns.
Since 1998, there have been more than 400 recorded cases of violence and
hate crimes. The real figures may be much higher. Churches are reluctant to
register complaints unless the violence is such that it cannot be ignored.
`We forgive,=92 say the Nuns. Many of them do not know how to register a ca=
se
with the police, and many others fear that if they do register a complaint,
there may be even more severe retribution. They have before the example of
priests who have been beheaded, their bodies quartered, of Nuns gang raped.
In Mathura, Brother George was murdered this year, and then the eyewitness
to his murder, his cook Vijay Ekka, was tortured to death by the local
police. Fear is the key.
`Mr. Prime Minister, Long ago we left our Fathers and our homes. We have
worked without fear in distant forests and villages. Now, for the first
time, we are feeling afraid,=94 Sister Dolores, the National Secretary of t=
he
Catholic Religious in India, the association of priests and nuns in India,
told the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Vajpayee at a meeting we had with him
some months ago. She spoke for us all.
The violent hate crimes against Christians will end when the hate campaign
ends. =93Your silence kills, Mr. Prime Minister,=94 the late Archbishop Ala=
n de
Lastic told the Indian Prime Minister in one of his last meetings with Mr.
Vajpayee.=20
The time has come to speak.=20
Thank You
John Dayal

_____

#3.

Tehelka.com

'Muslim societies are quite out of tune with the times'

Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain, leader of Indian migrants
settled in Pakistan, has called Partition of the Indian sub-continent the
"biggest blunder" in history. Well-known modern historian Mushirul Hasan
spoke to Zafar Agha on the relevance of Hussain's statement and the problem
of Partition that is haunting Pakistan
=20
New Delhi, September 19
Isn't it a little strange that the Mohajirs, who were the backbone of the
Pakistan-formation movement in the early 1940s, now feel that the Partition
was a historic blunder? I don't find it strange at all because one should
not lose sight of what happened in Bangladesh. A large section of Bengalis
had supported the Pakistani movement in the 1940s. But once Bengali
nationalism came to the fore, the same Bengalis opted for Bangladesh. There
is a great deal of commonality between Bengali sub-nationalism and Mohajir
sub-nationalism. The primary motivation of both these movements is language
and access to material resources. And the lesson from this is that
religious nationalism cannot be the basis of a modern nation state.

Altaf Hussain is now questioning the very basis of Pakistan. Isn't this a
new political development in Pakistani society? It's not an entirely new
development. If you look back into the Indian migrants' past, you will find
that the Mohajirs began to express remorse soon after Pakistan was formed.
The late Josh Malihabadi (well known Urdu poet and Nehru's friend who
migrated to Pakistan for the sake of the Urdu language) is a case in point.
But, earlier, the trend to question the very basis of Pakistan was limited
to drawing-room conversations, or in intellectual writings or poetry, etc.
It was essentially nostalgia for India. Now this is becoming a political
trend and is being expressed stridently. So, for me, it is basically a
statement of the failure of the Pakistani state to accommodate its own
protagonists in the political and economic system.

So the Pakistani state is failing and the process is leading to frustration
within its own constituency=85 That is exactly what I meant. It (Altaf's
statement) is essentially a sharp comment on the failure of the Pakistani
state. But Altaf's saying it so boldly may prove counter-productive from
the Mohajirs and his own point of view. I feel he should have not said it
so tactlessly because this kind of a statement may isolate the Mohajirs and
may undercut his (Hussain's) base.

----------=20
"Now this is becoming a political trend and is being expressed stridently.
So, for me, it is basically a statement of the failure of the Pakistani
state to accommodate its own protagonists in the political and economic
system"

----------

Hussain thinks that the entire Islamic ummaha (community) is sinking, like
the Titanic. What do you feel about it? The notion of ummaha is an
attractive one but it is essentially romantic. It reflects the doctrine of
Islam, all right. But it does not reflect the reality of the Islamic
society. The ship of Islamic ummaha was never afloat. So the sinking of it
does not arise at all. He probably has a point, in the sense that every
Muslim society has to solve

itsown problems. Perhaps, when he referred to the Titanic, he had
Palestinians in mind because the Arabs abandoned them leaving them to sink
like the Titanic.

Most Islamic societies are, indeed, sinking societies=85 They are and will
remain so unless monarchical, feudal and authoritarian regimes are replaced
by more democratic states. Basically, Muslim societies are quite out of
tune with the times.

Hussain is unwilling to own even Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Do you feel that, as
Pakistan gets embroiled in more and more problems, its leaders may find
Jinnah a villain rather than a hero? (Laughs and laughs) This is not a very
mature judgment. Jinnah, or for that matter anyone, can be judged as a
villain. But this notion of history, making someone a hero and the other a
villain does not appeal to me. I would only point out in this regard
Jinnah's own statement in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly calling for the
creation of a secular, Pakistani society. You see, Jinnah himself had begun
to doubt whether religious nationalism could serve as a potential force for
the creation of a modern nation-state.

What will you identify as the tragedy of Pakistan? Pakistan's greatest
tragedy is that it failed to recognise the significance of the Indian
slogan "Unity in Diversity". It is a secular rhetoric of considerable
value. Had Pakistan recognised it, there would have been no Bangladesh and
no Altaf Hussain.

_____________________________________________
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