[sacw] SACW | 17 Jan. 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 17 January 2003

__________________________

#1. Is it a war on Islam? (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
#2. India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch (IPARMW) # 108 
[16 January 2003]
#3. Impact of Religious Extremism on Security of South Asia (Admiral L.Ramdas)
#4. Follow the Money (Vijay Prashad)
#5. "India will certainly be a happier, safer and generally more 
civilized country to live in if it stopped treating homosexuals as 
criminals..." (Editorial, The Telegraph)
#6. Hindutva at work ! [News Reports]
#7. The Tribes - So-Called - of Gujarat : In the Perspective of Time 
(A M Shah)
#8. Peace Demonstrations on 18th January in Pakistan
#9. Book Review: Mapmaking: Partition Stories from the 2 Bengals, 
edited by Debjani Sengupta

__________________________

#1.

16 January 2003

IS IT A WAR ON ISLAM?
by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Street opinion in Pakistan, and probably most Muslim countries, holds that
Islam is the sole target of America's new wars. Even moderate Muslims are
worried. The profiling of Muslims by the INS, the placing of Muslim states
on the US register of rogues, and the blanket approval given to Israeli
bulldozers as they level Palestinian neighborhoods appear dangerous
indicators of a religious war. But Muslims undeservedly award themselves
special status and imagine what is not true. America's goal goes much
beyond subjugating inconsequential Muslim states. Instead it seeks to
remake the world according to its needs, preference, and convenience. The
war on Iraq is but the first step.

Aggressive militarism has been openly endorsed by America's corporate and
political establishment. Mainstream commentators in the US press now argue
that, given its awesome military might, American ambition has been
insufficient. Max Boot, editor of the Wall Street Journal, writes that
"Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of
enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident
Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets". The Washington Post calls for an
"imperialist revival" and the need for Americans to "impose their own
institutions on disorderly ones". The Atlantic Monthly remarks that
American policy makers should learn from the Greek, Roman, and British
empires for tips on how to run American foreign policy.

Although many Americans still cling to the belief that their country's new
unilateralism is no more than "injured innocence", and a natural response
of any victim of terror, the Establishment does not suffer from such
naivety. Empire has been part of the American way of life for a long time.
The difference after 911 - and it is a significant one - is that America
no longer sees need to battle for the hearts and minds of those it would
dominate; there is no other superpower to whom the weak can turn. In
today's Washington, a US-based diplomat recently confided to me, the
United Nations has become a dirty word. International law is on the way to
irrelevancy, except when it can be used to further US goals.

Still, none of this amounts to a war on Islam. Some will disagree. The
fanatical hordes spilling out of Pakistan's madrassas imagine seeing
Richard the Lion Hearted bearing down upon them. Sword in hand they pray
to Allah to grant war and send the modern Saladin, one who can
miraculously dodge cruise missiles and hurl them back to their launchers.
On the other side, Christian-Jewish extremists, extending from the Jerry
Falwells and Pat Robertsons to the leaders of Israel's Likud, yearn for
yet another crusade. They too are convinced that inter-civilizational
religious war is not only inevitable but also desirable. Belief in final
victory is, of course, never doubted by the faithful.

But the counter-evidence to a civilizational war is much stronger. Between
1945 and 2000 the US has fought 28 major, and countless minor, wars.
Korea, Guatemala, Congo, Laos, Peru, Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, and Iraq are only some of the countries which the
US has bombed or invaded. The Vietnam War alone claimed a million lives.
By comparison America's wars on Muslim states have been far less bloody.
Iraqi deaths during the Gulf War, and the recent victims of bombing in
Afghanistan, amount to fewer than 70 thousand. Even if one throws in
casualties from the Israeli-Arab wars of 1967 and 1971 and attributes them
to the US, Muslim deaths are only a few percent of the Vietnam War total.

Material self-interest, and not antipathy to Islam, has been the driving
force behind US foreign policy. A list of America's Muslim foes and
friends makes this crystal clear. America's foes during the 1950's and
1960's were secular nationalist leaders. Mohammed Mossadeq of Iran, who
opposed Standard Oil's grab at Iran's oil resources, was removed by a CIA
coup. Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia, accused of being a communist, was
removed by US intervention and a resulting bloodbath that consumed about
eight hundred thousand lives. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, who had Islamic
fundamentalists like Saiyyid Qutb publicly executed, fell foul of the US
and Britain after the Suez Crisis. On the other hand, until very
recently, America's friends were the sheikhs of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
states, all of whom practiced highly conservative forms of Islam but were
the darlings of Western oil companies.

Nevertheless, Washington has occasionally misunderstood American
self-interests - sometimes fatally so. "Mission myopia", as the CIA now
wanly admits, led to the network of global jihad in the early 1980's. With
William Casey as CIA director, the largest covert operation in history was
launched after Reagan signed the "National Security Decision Directive
166", calling for American efforts to drive Soviet forces from Afghanistan
"by all means available". US counter-insurgency experts worked closely
with the Pakistani ISI in bringing men and material from around the Arab
world and beyond. All this is well known. Less known is the ideological
help provided by US institutions, including universities.

Readers browsing through book bazaars in Rawalpindi and Peshawar can, even
today, find textbooks written as part of the series underwritten by a
USAID $50 million grant to the University of Nebraska in the 1980's. These
textbooks sought to counterbalance Marxism through creating enthusiasm in
Islamic militancy. They exhorted Afghan children to "pluck out the eyes of
the Soviet enemy and cut off his legs". Years after the books were first
printed they were approved by the Taliban for use in madrassas - a stamp
of their ideological correctness.

The cost of America's mission myopia has been a staggering one. The
network of Islamic militant organizations created primarily out of the
need to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan did not disappear after the
immediate goal was achieved but, instead, like any good
military-industrial complex, grew from strength to strength. Nevertheless,
until 11 September, US policy makers were unrepentant, even proud of their
winning strategy. It took a cataclysm to bring them down to earth.

But militant organizations have done far greater harm to Muslims, whose
causes they claim to promote, than to those who they battle against.
Killing tourists and bombing churches is the work of moral cretins and is
not just cowardly and inhumane, but also a strategic disaster. Indeed,
fanatical acts can sting the American colossus but never seriously hurt
it. Though perfectly planned and executed, the 911 operation was a
strategic blunder of colossal proportions. It vastly strengthened American
militarism, gave Ariel Sharon the license to ethnically cleanse Palestine,
and allowed state-sponsored pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat to get by with
only a squeak of international condemnation.

The absence of a modern political culture and the weakness of Muslim civil
society have long rendered Muslim states inconsequential players on the
world stage. An encircled, enfeebled dictator is scarcely a threat to his
neighbors as he struggles to save his skin. Tragically, Muslim leaders,
out of fear and greed, publicly wring their hands but collude with the US
and offer their territory for bases as it now bears down on Iraq.
Significantly, no Muslim country has proposed an oil embargo or a serious
boycott of American companies.

What, then, should be the strategy for all those who believe in a just
world and are appalled by America's war on the weak? Vietnam, to my mind,
offers the only viable model of resistance. A stern regard for morality,
said their strategists, is the best defense of the weak. Even though B-52s
were carpet-bombing his country, Ho Chi Minh did not call for hijacking
airliners or blowing up buses. On the contrary the Vietnamese reached out
to the American people, making a clear distinction between them and their
government. By inviting media celebrities like Jane Fonda and Joan Baez,
Vietnam generated enormous goodwill. On the other hand, can you imagine
the consequences of Vietnam's leadership being with Osama bin Laden rather
than Ho Chi Minh? That country would surely have been a radioactive
wasteland, rather than the unique victor against imperialism.

Only a global peace movement that explicitly condemns terrorism against
non-combatants can slow, and perhaps halt, George Bush's madly speeding
chariot of war. Massive anti-war demonstrations in Washington, New York,
London, Florence, and other western cities have brought out hundreds of
thousands at a time. A sense of commitment to human principles and peace -
not fear or fanaticism - impelled these demonstrators. But why are the
streets of Islamabad, Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus, and Jakarta empty? Why do
only fanatics demonstrate in our cities? Let us hang our heads in shame.
--------------
(The author teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.)

______

#2.

India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch (IPARMW) # 108 [16 
January 2003]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/119

______

#3.

Pugwash Meeting no. 277
Pugwash Workshop on South Asian Security
Geneva, Switzerland, 1-3 November 2002

IMPACT OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM ON SECURITY OF SOUTH ASIA
PRESENTATION BY ADMIRAL L.RAMDAS
http://www.pugwash.org/reports/rc/SAS_ramdas.htm

______

#4.

http://www.littleindia.com/
Little India
Jan. 16, 2003

Follow the Money
by Vijay Prashad

Do you know where your charitable contributions are going?

Each year, I give money to various organizations. I always give to 
the progressive media, whether magazines or radio, mainly because 
they refuse to take corporate funds that, generally, distort the 
coverage. A bunch of money goes toward organizations that struggle 
for racial, economic and gender justice in the US, most of whom again 
are underfunded for the task they have undertaken. Finally, because I 
was raised in India and feel a deep sense of patriotism to the 
country that bred me, I, like most of us, donate money to US-based 
groups that raise funds for good work in India. Its not like I have 
vast amounts of money, but I do like to make sure that a chunk of my 
surplus gets recycled in this age when government's cease to fund the 
public good. Our taxes took over from institutions like the daan 
(among Buddhists) and the tithe (among Catholics), this so that it 
was not left to the wiles of individuals to create social justice. 
The state was to be that instrument. With its failure to do the work, 
the non-profit sector moved in.

So the checkbooks come out and we write our modest contributions to 
one or another US-based group that sends funds to India. It is not 
easy to find these groups, and we mainly rely upon word of mouth. 
Fortunately groups like CRY and ASHA organize frequent events about , 
which we read in our papers or else to which we get invited via the 
flyers left in our local desi store. My first encounter with 
long-distance philanthropy was through these two groups. Then there 
are local organizations, such as V. Raman's Hartford-based Volunteers 
for Service and Education in India, an excellent organization run by 
the hard work and dedication of one man. Finally, many folks rely 
upon websites, word of mouth or else corporate matching programs to 
find organizations that take our dollars to make development rupees.

One of these organizations is the India Development and Relief Fund 
(IDRF). An innocuous name, for those who run across it, it attracts 
attention because NRIs are all interested in the "development" of the 
country and the "relief" of those hit hard by natural calamities.

Earthquakes and droughts require especial help, and we are ready with 
our money to help a state exchequer routinely in the red. Since most

of us benefited from state-funded educational systems that are now 
slowly withering away, we welcome donations toward education 
institutions that target the oppressed (dalits and advasis) as well 
as programs for women's empowerment. On the surface this is 
unimpeachable stuff and we tend to give money to any group that 
purports to do good in India, whether CRY, ASHA, VSEI or IDRF. Our 
international philanthropy is laudable and should be promoted.

In mid-November a group of U.S.-based artists, scholars and activists 
released a landmark study called The Foreign Exchange of Hate. IDRF 
and the American Funding of Hindutva. The report, published by the 
Mumbai-based Sabrang Communications (publishers of Communalism 
Combat) and by the France-based South Asia Citizen's Watch [...], 
alleges that IDRF raises money on false pretenses. It claims to take 
our money and do charitable work in India, when it fact it directs it 
to pro-Hindutva organizations who sully the body politics, conduct 
communal pogroms and destabilize the social life of India. The money 
may indeed go toward "development" and "relief," but the report 
argues, it "develops" Hindutva's agenda and not that of the 
Constitution of India. The material is largely based on a study of 
IDRF's own filings to the Internal Review Service as well as IDRF's 
annual report. From these documents, the report tracks the 
organizations to which IDRF gives money. Then, it studied the reports 
of the New York-based Human Rights Watch as well as activist groups 
in Gujarat to show that the groups to whom IDRF gave money are groups 
that have been fingered as participants in the mayhem since the 1990s.

Faced by a barrage from the Indian press, IDRF responded on Nov 22, 
labelling the accusations "pure concoction, untruthful and 
self-contradicting," "a string of allegations," since "IDRF does not 
subscribe to any religious, political or sectarian agendas. 
Furthermore, IDRF does not discriminate against any religion, sect, 
or race in either the collection or distribution of funds." Apart 
from this general disavowal, IDRF, founded by an ex-World Bank 
economist, Vinod Prakash, did not get into the specifics of the 
allegations against it.

That is a pity, because it would have been useful for our community 
to hear IDRF rebut the evidence in The Foreign Exchange of Hate. Here 
is a taste of what is in the report (available at www.stop 
fundinghate.org):

An Analysis of the Money

The report studied IDRF transfers of $5 million from 1994 to 2000, 
which found that 83 percent percent of the money went to 
organizations affiliated with the RSS, such as: Jana Sankshema Samiti 
(Vijayavada, Andhra Pradesh), Seva Bharati Purvanchal (Guwahati, 
Assam), Vikas Bharati Bishupur (Gumla, Chhattisgarh, Bihar), Birsa 
Seva Prakalp (Hazaribag, Jharkhand), Hindu Seva Pratishthana 
(Bangalore, Karnataka), Yogakshema Trust (Cochin, Kerala) and many 
more. The report says that these organizations can be shown to be 
RSS-affiliation "through their own literature or other secondary 
sources." Or else, if you want, you can tally the names with the RSS 
publication, Amrut-Kumbha written by RSS pracharak S. H. Ketkar 
(published in Pune, 1995).

What is of interest is that most of the donors, 90 percent of them, 
in fact, did not designate these organizations. Only ten percent of 
those who gave money to IDRF specifically designated that IDRF must 
give their money to a specific RSS organization. Nevertheless, IDRF 
gave more than 80 percent of its disbursements to the groups 
associated with the RSS. In other words, the report concluded, IDRF 
has an agenda to support the RSS activities and to reshape India in 
the RSS image. In addition, more than 90 percent of its money went to 
Hindu groups with a small fraction given to secular organizations, 
with no organization identified with any minority community in 
receipt of any funds.

According to the report, most of the money (70 percent) went toward 
education and to Hinduization (shuddhi) programs. The education, as 
well, is not secular education, but religious education. Less than 
ten percent went to health and welfare work, while only four percent 
went to rural development. It is, therefore, not outrageous to 
suggest that the money goes toward the reconstruction of India from a 
secular democracy into the image of the RSS. If this is not the case, 
then IDRF needs to account for how it is not so.

If you're into the RSS agenda, then go ahead and write your checks to 
the IDRF. At least the IDRF should be honest about its intentions and 
not hide behind a harmless name to do its work.

Swami Ashim Anand

On 9 September 1999, the U.S. State Department released its Annual 
Report on International Religious Freedom. In the report, we find the 
following:

"On January 27, 1999, 12 Christian villagers were "reconverted" 
forcibly to Hinduism under threat of the loss of the right to use the 
local well and the destruction of their homes. The "reconversion" was 
carried out by youths working with Swami Ashim Anand, a Hindu active 
in "reconverting" tribals in the area. However, the villagers stated 
that prior to becoming Christians they had not been Hindu."

In 1998-99, the Dangs district of Gujarat felt the iron fist of 
Hindutva. The Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams and other organizations in the 
state mobilized their cadre to go amongst the oppressed adivasis and 
create mayhem. The point was to "reconvert" adivasis to Hinduism by 
force and to ensure that Christians be held at bay. The violence that 
ensued should be seen as the prologue of the recent anti-Muslim 
pogrom in the state. In a series of reports Indian Express offered 
evidence that Swami Ashim Anand had organized young people into bands 
to spread the terror. Ashim Modi, Bajrang Dal president for Surat 
district (which neighbors Dangs) told the Indian Express that the 
Swami had been part of the "Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, an organization 
affiliated to the VHP." In a February 1999 story in the Indian 
Express, the journalist wrote, "After coming to Waghai a couple of 
years ago, the Swami had spearheaded the formation of Bajrang Dal 
units in every village. The recent violence against the Christian 
community was reportedly led by activists groomed by the Swami."

The IDRF, it turns out, was one of the foundations that supported the 
work of the Swami. Chetan Gandhi, a Vice President of IDRF, visited 
the Dangs region of Gujarat and filed this report to IDRF: "Swami 
Ashimanandji is in charge of the Ashram's activities in the district 
though is as some [sic] only before 18 months he is well known as 
respected by the community." The Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad is an "IDRF 
supported project in Gujarat," according to the IDRF itself.

None of this is history. During the 2002 riots, three organizations 
that participated in the pogrom, the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, the 
Vivekananda Kendra and the Vanvasi Seva Sangh continue to receive 
IDRF funds.

The IDRF could have been duped by these organizations, posing as 
development groups that only later went out to kill in a sectarian 
manner. This is possible. However, the statistical trends depicted in 
the report suggest that either the IDRF itself is coddling the RSS or 
else the laws of chance have worked to smear its reputation. Either 
way, the IDRF needs to explain its funding practices.

It turns out that not only did ordinary NRIs may have been surprised 
at the funding profile of IDRF; so were several major corporations of 
the New Economy: Cisco, Sun, Oracle and HP. These firms match 
employee contributions to US-based non-profits and they are also 
urged by their employees to contribute additional funds to especially 
good charities. The large number of Indians in these firms makes it 
less of a surprise that a charity that works on India is one of the 
highest earners of New Economy largess. This is not to say that all 
the Indians who work at these firms are pro-RSS, but that the 
organization has been able to convince the workers and the firms that 
it is the only bona fide group that does good work in the Indian 
countryside. In 1999, IDRF received $140,000 from Cisco, and entered 
the top five charities for the company. Meanwhile, Doctors Without 
Borders got only $2500. Since the publication of the report many of 
these American corporations have stopped their matching program for 
IDRF.

What of the NRIs who want to promote the development of India, 
although not the Hindutva vision of it? Channel your resources to 
secular groups ASHA and CRY, or else use the money to transform the 
US government so that it is less invested in the deprivation of 
Gujarat than in its genuine social development.

______

#5.

The Telegraph
Friday, January 17, 2003
Editorial

DON'T LOOK AWAY

India will certainly be a happier, safer and generally more civilized 
country to live in if it stopped treating homosexuals as criminals 
and let them get on with their lives as ordinary human beings. Most 
of the enlightened world has decriminalized and legalized 
homosexuality several decades ago. The debate there has moved on to 
more sophisticated legal problems involving marriage, adoption and 
property rights. But India remains tied to a grimly discriminatory 
penal code, formed by imperialist prudes in the mid-19th century, 
which not only reduces homosexuality to sodomy ("carnal intercourse 
against the order of nature") but also keeps up a combination of 
blackmail, extortion and brutality in the name of maintaining law and 
order. But the judiciary seems to have suddenly sat up to all this, 
without actually taking a definite stand on the matter. The Delhi 
high court has asked the Centre to hurry up and make up its mind 
about the issue. Moral revulsion and bigoted embarrassment could use 
evasion as well as violence as modes of discrimination. The Centre 
has looked away for years in spite of a number of petitions filed in 
the courts, mostly by concerned nongovernmental organizations. But, 
all of a sudden, India's frightening HIV/AIDS scenario has given the 
matter a new edge.

Although the government does its best to wish away the fact that men 
who have sex with men are a high-risk group when it comes to 
HIV/AIDS, it is becoming increasingly difficult to look away. The 
ultimatum from the court is also linked to the urgent need for making 
prevention campaigns in the country less hazardous for AIDS workers. 
It is difficult to make an activity belonging to a largely invisible 
and criminalized underworld part of a drive towards health and 
hygiene. But this association with HIV/AIDS gives to homosexuality 
and homosexual activism a joyless quality, a matter of safe sex and 
legal reform. Homosexual men and women in India need to fight for 
their legal rights on the basis of something far more positive and 
fundamental than the fear of disease and death. What is at stake here 
is a human being's right to happiness and freedom, to enjoy adulthood 
without being forced into fear and falsehood, doubleness and deceit 
by an oppressive social system, archaic laws and a venal 
law-and-order machinery. Legal reform can only be the beginning of a 
process of change which needs to be nothing short of a social 
revolution. But legalizing homosexuality is the only civilized option 
for a nation that proudly calls itself a modern democracy.

_____

#6.

Hindutva at work !

The Hindustan Times, January 16, 2003 
Sufi shrine centre of communal tension
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/printedition/160103/detNAT07.shtml

Victims blame VHP for 'organised' violence (Bhopal)
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=16743

The Telegraph, January 17, 2003
Sangh drags scandal into pastor attack
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030117/asp/nation/story_1581887.asp

The Indian Express
Violence in Vadodara
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=41034

The Times of India
VHP demands arrest of US missionary
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=34534576

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#7.

Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay)
January 11, 2003
Commentary

The Tribes - So-Called - of Gujarat
In the Perspective of Time

If social scientists are surprised or puzzled by the participation 
of tribal people in the communal riots and in voting for the 
BJP in Gujarat, they have to blame themselves. They have carried in 
their mind stereotypes about tribal society and failed to 
conduct intensive and fundamental field research on tribal 
society for a long time. Some of them have not even read relevant 
available literature.
A M Shah

There is a widespread feeling of surprise among the intelligentsia, 
including social scientists, about the spread of recent communal 
violence in Gujarat to its so-called tribal areas and the subsequent 
victory of many BJP candidates in the assembly election in the same 
areas, both signifying victory of forces of so-called Hindutva among 
the tribal people. This feeling of surprise may be attributed partly 
at least to the failure of social scientists to carry out intensive 
field studies of social change in tribal society in modern times and 
therefore lack of information about this change among the 
intelligentsia. It seems to me, however, that the feeling of 
surprise is also due to the false images of tribal society created by 
social scientists and spread among the intelligentsia for more than a 
century. In other words, it is a problem not merely of 
non-availability of facts, but also of perspective of known facts. I 
wish to discuss the latter in this article.

Division of the people of Gujarat, as in the rest of India, into 
Hindus consisting of many castes on the one hand and aborigines or 
tribals on the other is a creation of the British colonial 
administration, influenced by the evolutionist and diffusionist 
theories of 18th and 19th centuries anthropology in Britain. The 
British thought the tribes in India were similar to primitive tribes 
they had known in Africa, Australia, the Pacific islands, and many 
other parts of the world. The colonial view was also articulated by 
certain anthropologists in India, the most well known among whom was 
Verrier Elvin. The British prepared lists of tribes in the 
territories under their jurisdiction and took special administrative 
measures to deal with their problems. The nomenclature 'tribe' was 
later built into the Constitution of independent India under the 
denomination of 'scheduled tribe', and the lists of tribes prepared 
by the British were more or less accepted by the new government. Some 
Indian intellectuals had reacted against this division of Indian 
people during the time of British rule itself. The foremost among 
them was the doyen of Indian sociology, G S Ghurye, who wrote a well 
known book with a telling title, The Aborigines - So-Called - And 
Their Future (1934). He argued at length with wealth of evidence to 
show that the so-called aborigines were backward Hindus and not a 
separate category of people in India. Most of them lived in hilly and 
forest areas and their technology and economy were poor, but they 
were basically Hindu in religion, he thought. The British 
view, however, prevailed throughout their regime.

The terms 'adivasi', 'adimjati' and 'janjati' now used in Indian 
languages are not originally Indian. They are translations of English 
terms introduced by the British and we may continue to use them since 
they have now been in use for nearly 200 years. Let us, however, 
leave aside this legacy of British thought for a while and look at 
the situation before the beginning of British rule. First of all, it 
is noteworthy that neither at the elite nor at the popular level any 
generic social category was used in the earlier times to refer to the 
groups we now call tribal. This was in sharp contrast to the generic 
categories such as 'antyaja', 'achhut', 'asprushya' and 'chandala' 
used for the untouchable castes ('jatis') put together, and the 
elaborate treatment they received in classical literature such as the 
Dharmashastras. The people in the plains referred to the tribal 
groups in Gujarat individually by their specific names, such as bhil, 
naikda, kokna, etc.

The general image that the tribal people in the hills were isolated 
from the plains Hindus in Gujarat was false on several counts. The 
hills were not very high. Even the higher hills among them, such as 
Mt Abu and Pavagadh, were not inaccessible. In fact, there were 
forts, temples and monasteries on them. The forests were also not 
very thick. Numerous rivers flowing from the hills to the plains not 
only provided easy routes for travel across the hills, but also 
patches of fertile land for peasants from the plains to settle. There 
were pilgrim centres along most of the rivers. Armies and caravans of 
traders from seaports and inland towns could move fairly easily 
across the hills towards the whole of northern and central India. All 
in all, there were no insurmountable physical barriers between the 
people of the hills and the plains.

There was considerable economic exchange between the two areas. The 
hilly areas supplied mainly (a) forest produce such as timber, 
firewood, certain kinds of roots, fruits and leaves, and honey, and 
(b) minerals such as stone slabs required in constructing temples, 
palaces, forts, and ghats along rivers and tanks, grinding stones, 
and certain precious stones required by craftsmen in towns such as 
Cambay and Surat. The plains supplied certain essential commodities 
like salt. The hilly region did not have specialised artisans and 
craftsmen characteristic of the caste system in the plains. Which of 
them supplied their goods and services to the people of the hills is 
a matter of reseach. Surely, the plains weavers supplied whatever 
cloth the tribal people used - their daily wear might be scanty but 
their ceremonial dress must have been elaborate. When ploughs with 
iron share began to be used in tribal agriculture, the plains 
blacksmiths must have supplied the shares. (Incidentally, it would be 
worthwhile to find out how the various forms of agriculture - 
slash-and-burn cultivation, hoe cultivation, pick-axe cultivation, 
plough cultivation with hard wooden share and then iron share - 
evolved in these areas.) Similarly, the plains blacksmiths must have 
supplied iron tips for arrows so commonly used by the tribal people. 
The plains potters must have also supplied earthen pots and pans to 
them - I saw in the 1940s-1950s groups of plains potters carrying 
pots on donkey back to sell in the tribal areas in the Panchmahals.

When the British began to rule over Gujarat in the beginning of the 
20th century a large number of rajput princely states existed all 
over the hill region, from Danta in the north to Vansda and Dharampur 
in the south. I do not know if the tribal chiefs in Dang further 
south-east claimed to be rajputs but they did style themselves as 
rajas. These kingdoms seem to have owed their origin to three 
historical processes. (1) In the rajput political system established 
in Gujarat and Rajasthan around 10th century AD, on account of the 
rule of primogeniture governing succession to kingship, some of the 
junior members of the royal brotherhood received in patrimony feudal 
estates in the hills which in course of time became independent. Some 
other members might also have ventured to found independent little 
kingdoms after subjugating the hill chiefs. (2) When the Muslim 
sultans established their rule in Gujarat in the 13th century AD they 
removed not only the rajput sovereign, but also a number of rajput 
feudal lords in the plains. Some of the latter fled to the hills and 
established their small kingdoms there, possibly by subjugating the 
tribal people. (3) Some of the tribal chiefs transformed themselves 
into rajput kings by a long process of emulation of rajput ways of 
life.

Whatever be the origin of the rajput kingdoms in the hills, they 
developed symbiotic relationship with the tribal chiefs and their 
followers. A symbolic expression of this relationship was the tribal 
chiefs' participation in the coronation ceremony of the rajput king. 
According to folklore, at least in some kingdoms the tribal chiefs 
applied 'tilak' of blood taken out of their finger on the king's 
forehead at this ceremony - a symbol of solidarity with as well as 
acceptance of superiority of the king. In course of time the tribal 
chiefs emulated the rajputs and began to claim to be rajputs. They 
also got their daughters married into low status rajput families. The 
hypergamous system of marriage among the rajputs encouraged the lower 
rungs of their hierarchy to accept the tribal chiefs' daughters - an 
important dimension of symbiotic relationship between the two. The 
rajput kings also established capital towns in the hills, bringing 
into them from the plains the entire paraphernalia of Hindu social 
order comprising a number of castes. The chain of historical 
developments described above thus became a major source of 
sanskritisation of tribal people in Gujarat. This was a process of 
spread of what the late M N Srinivas called sanskritic 
Hinduism, first discussed in his classic work, Religion and Society 
among the Coorgs of South India (1952) and later elaborated in an 
essay in 1956.

A major component of population in the capital towns set up by the 
rajput kings were vania (bania) traders from the plains. When and how 
the vanias began to set up shops in tribal villages is a matter of 
resesarch. It seems to have depended on the pace of development of 
tribal economy, particularly their agriculture (the main stages of 
which I indicated above). The tribal economy in villages in the zone 
of merger between the hills and the plains seems to have developed 
earlier than in the interior on account of the closer contact of the 
former with peasants in the plains. The vanias therefore set up shops 
in the former villages earlier than in the latter. In any case, a 
kind of symbiosis developed between the vanias and the tribal people 
not only in the economic, but also in cultural and religious spheres. 
I saw in the 1940s-1950s in the Panchmahals how the vanias 
participated in the propitiation of tribal deities on the one hand 
and the tribal people in the worship of gods and goddesses of 
sanskritic Hinduism on the other. The vanias also thus became a 
source of sanskritisation of the tribal people. Many historians and 
social scientists have referred to exploitation of the tribal people 
by the vanias. That there was an element of exploitation in the 
relationship between the two cannot be denied. However, the fact that 
the vanias played the important role of integrating the tribal 
economy and society into the wider economy and society should not be 
ignored.

The kolis have been the largest caste category in Gujarat, comprising 
nearly one-fourth of its population, spread almost all over Gujarat. 
They have been economically backward and ranked lower than the middle 
castes in sanskritisation. The large bulk of them lived in the plains 
villages as an integral part of the multi-caste social order. A small 
section lived in the merger zone between the plains and the hills, 
the kind I studied in the Panchmahals (see my papers 1955a and 
1955b). Although they had become here a caste after considerable 
sanskritisation, they did not have the entire paraphernalia of the 
caste order in their villages, namely, castes of brahmans, 
scavengers, artisans and craftsmen. Their wedding rituals were 
performed by a caste of barbers or by low status brahmans from the 
plains, and individual kolis had learnt carpentry and blacksmithy 
from the plains craftsmen. A smaller section of kolis also lived in 
the hills as neighbours of tribal groups. Only a close inquiry could 
help distinguish the former from the latter. The kolis of the three 
zones merged continuously and imperceptibly from the plains to the 
hills. It is no wonder the kolis were frequently confused with the 
bhils in the minds of upper castes in the plains. This confusion was 
also reflected in the literary sources of the past. I also suspect 
that wherever the tribal people lived in the proximity of the kolis 
the former emulated the latter in religion and culture, contributing 
thus to their sanskritisation.

There is a general image that every tribal group lived in isolation 
from other tribal groups, let alone from the caste Hindus. There 
could be some pockets where a particular tribal group was confined, 
but usually the dwellings of each tribal group were interspersed with 
those of one or two or more of other groups. A comment on village 
settlements would help understand the situation. In the plains every 
village was a nucleated settlement, where the dwellings belonging to 
the village were huddled together on a site while cultivable land lay 
all around it. In the hills, on the other hand, a village was a 
dispersed settlement, where each dwelling or a small cluster of 
dwellings was located on its own farm at considerable distance from 
another dwelling or cluster of dwellings. Only a close inquiry would 
reveal which houses constituted a village community - usually a small 
community, a hamlet (for a description of a dispersed village see my 
paper 1955a). In this pattern of settlement the dwellings of diverse 
ethnic groups could be easily interspersed without getting involved 
in intensive social interaction as in the nucleated villages in the 
plains.

There is a notion about the tribal people that they were free from 
ideas of purity and pollution found generally among the caste Hindus. 
This notion needs critical examination with intensive field research. 
First of all, ideas of purity and pollution existed in the personal 
life of tribal people. For example, women in the menstrual cycle 
observed at least some rules of pollution. They would not approach 
their sacred spots in this state. Similarly, men would approach their 
deities only after purifying themselves by a bath. Secondly, wherever 
members of one tribe lived with members of another tribe - as I 
mentioned above, this was not uncommon - their interaction in some 
spheres was affected by ideas of purity and pollution. A caste-like 
situation seems to have prevailed in the relations between various 
tribal groups. I do not know how the tribal people behaved with the 
so-called untouchables whenever and wherever they lived with them. I 
hope radical or utopian thought will not prevent social scientists 
from studying systematically and reporting on this rather sensitive 
aspect of social reality.

I hope the above discussion has shown that the tribal people in 
Gujarat were not as isolated as they are generally thought to be 
before the coming of the British. Their integration with the plains 
people increased greatly with the construction of railways and roads 
through the tribal areas, establishment of new administration, 
expansion of trade and commerce, and general economic development 
during the British times. It is also necessary to examine what we 
mean by isolation of the tribal people. We should ask: isolation from 
whom? They were not isolated from the caste Hindus living in the 
merger zone between the hills and the plains and from those in the 
towns in the hills. We should also note that the tribal people in 
Gujarat were subject to influences from the plains across the border 
in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

All in all, the tribal people were under the impact of sanskritic 
Hinduism through various channels before the beginning of British. 
With the expansion of their exposure to the wider world - which was 
the world dominated by higher castes - during the British times, 
through activities of the British government as well as of the 
princely states, the pace of sanskritisation among them increased 
considerably. A number of religious movements with high sanskritic 
content - the Bhagat movements, for example - emerged all over the 
tribal areas. The activities of voluntary social work organisations 
in these areas, particularly the ashrams set up by Gandhian workers 
like Thakkar Bapa, had also a sanskritic content, latent if not 
manifest.

By the time India became independent every tribal group was 
internally highly differentiated on every count, technology, economy, 
polity, culture and religion, so much so that the group as a whole 
could not really be considered as 'tribal'. Some groups like the 
dublas of south Gujarat had even become castes, living in multi-caste 
villages in the plains. Nevertheless, the British legacy continued 
and the groups labelled as 'scheduled tribes' continued to be so 
labelled under the Constitution of independent India. There was no 
critical examination of the changed state of economic and social life 
of these groups while preparing the lists of scheduled tribes. The 
entire decision-making process was arbitrary.

I may give here an example of extreme arbitrariness. At independence 
the numerous princely states of Saurashtra were grouped together into 
the category 'B' state of Saurashtra. There were no social groups in 
this entire region which could be considered tribal or aboriginal by 
any stretch of imagination, and no princely state had labelled any 
group as 'tribal'. However, when the central government was preparing 
lists of scheduled tribes for various states under the Constitution, 
it asked the government of Saurashtra to send it a list of tribes in 
the state. U N Dhebar was the chief minister at that time. The late I 
P Desai used to narrate a story about what happened then. Dhebar 
wrote to the central government that there were no tribes in 
Saurashtra. Jaisukhlal Hathi, a Gujarati, was a minister in the 
central cabinet at that time. When he came to know what Dhebar had 
written to the centre, he told him on telephone, "You are foolish. 
You are losing an opportunity to give benefits of reservation to at 
least some of your people. Prepare at least some list and send it". 
Dhebar promptly did so. In this way there are a few scheduled tribes 
in Saurashtra since then. Incidentally, social scientists in Uttar 
Pradesh have told me that one reason why UP has a relatively small 
population of scheduled tribes is that Gobind Ballabh Pant, the chief 
minister at the time of drawing up the list of scheduled tribes for 
the state, thought that there were no primitive people in UP.

To return to the so-called tribal people in Gujarat, the process of 
sanskritisation has gone on among them after independence to such an 
extent that the Hindu 'sants' like Morari Bapu and Pandurang Shastri 
Athavale have been able to go to the tribal areas frequently to give 
religious discourses, drawing large congregations. This is the 
foundation - I believe, a strong foundation - on which the members of 
the Sangh parivar have been trying to build their edifice for the 
last 10 years or more. It is necessary to distinguish clearly between 
sanskritisation and Hindutva. The process of sanskritisation is slow. 
While its manifestations are clear and it has been going for 
centuries, its progress cannot be observed easily in a short period 
of time. The activities of the Sangh parivar for propagating 
Hindutva, however, are recent in origin and politically motivated and 
planned. Usually, the latter cannot succeed without the former, while 
the former can go on without the latter and is likely to go on for 
long. I wonder if it has come to a halt even in those areas, like 
Jharkhand, where attempts have been made to go back to the supposedly 
original tribal culture.

The process of differentiation among the tribal groups has also 
accelerated after independence on every count, economic, political, 
social and religious. As Lancy Lobo has pointed out in a recent 
article (2002), modern elites have emerged among them and they are 
trying to disown their past and get merged into the high caste Hindu 
society. This is another process which helps the activities of the 
Sangh parivar.

Another important change is that a large number of the vania 
shopkeepers' families not only from tribal villages, but also from 
small towns in tribal areas have left or are in the process of 
leaving for availing of greater opportunities in cities in Gujarat 
and the rest of India and in other countries. A large part of the 
space vacated by this exodus is filled by Muslim shopkeepers. I have 
often heard the argument that the tribal people attacked these 
Muslims and their properties in recent riots because the latter 
exploited the former. This argument requires examination. (In fact 
all theories about exploitation have serious complications.) Is it 
possible, for example, to establish that the vania shopkeepers who 
preceded the Muslim shopkeepers and those of them who were still left 
in the tribal areas were less exploitative than the Muslim 
shopkeepers? And if not, why were they not attacked?

If social scientists are surprised or puzzled by the participation of 
tribal people in the communal riots and in voting for the BJP in 
Gujarat, they have to blame themselves. They have carried in their 
mind stereotypes about tribal society and also failed to conduct 
intensive and fundamental field research in it for a long time. Some 
of them have not even read relevant available literature. A great 
deal of the recent spurt in writings about Gujarat is full of 
stereotypes about it. It looks as though the less a writer knows 
about Gujarati society and culture the more flamboyant he becomes in 
theorising about it.

[This article is based on a variety of sources, fieldwork for about 
six months in the Panchmahals during 1952-53, longer fieldwork in 
central Gujarat later, the study of caste by genealogists and 
mythographers, travel all over Gujarat from time to time, reading of 
historical works and conversation with fellow social scientists. The 
main ideas have, however, come from the Panchmahals work, a part of 
the data from which was used to write two papers (1955a and 1955b). 
Since a lot of data of various kinds have been condensed in this 
article, I have not provided citations. I thank B S Baviskar, Vidyut 
Joshi and Lancy Lobo for comments on the draft of the article.]

References

Ghurye, G S (1943): The Aborigines - So-Called - and Their Future, 
Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Poona. Second edition 
entitled, The Scheduled Tribes, Popular Book Depot, Bombay, 1959.
Lobo, Lancy (2002): 'Adivasis, Hindutva and Post-Godhra Riots in 
Gujarat', Economic and Political Weekly, 37(48): 4844-49.
Shah, A M (1955a): 'A Dispersed Hamlet in the Panchmahals', Economic 
Weekly, III(4-5):109-16.
- (1955b): 'Caste, Economy and Territory in the Central Panchmahals', 
Journal of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, IV(1): 61-91.
Srinivas, M N (1952): Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South 
India, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
- (1956): 'A Note on Sanskritisation and Westernisation', Far Eastern 
Quarterly, 15:481-96. Reprinted in his Collected Essays, Oxford 
University Press, Delhi, 2002.

_____

#8.

Peace Demonstrations on 18th January in Pakistan

Anti War Committee Pakistan and other groups are holding three
demonstrations in Pakistan on 18th January. The demonstrations will 
be held at Islamabad,
Lahore and Karachi.

At Lahore the demon will start at 3pm from Hotel Flatties and will end in
front of American Consulate.

At Karachi, Famous Regal Chouck will witness the gathering of several
political and social groups at 3.30 pm. The organizations include Joint Action
Committee, Labour Party Pakistan, Aurat Foundation, PILER, Progressive Youth
Federation and other groups.

At Islamabad, a human chain in planned at the main center of Islamabad. Most
of the civil right organizations are participating in this activity.

Please join the demo if you are in these cities.

Please send a message of solidarity if possible immediately.

in Solidarity,

Farooq Tariq

______

#10.

The Hindu
Sunday, Jan 05, 2003
Literary Review

Despatches from the East

IN the minds of most Indians Partition tore apart Punjab. Bengal was 
partitioned too - wasn't it? - but that was not apocalyptic somehow.

Historians like Joya Chatterjee, with their research on the Eastern 
Partition, are trying to excavate the historical reasons for the 
unevenness of public memory; Mapmaking attempts a literary parallel. 
Is there no Manto or Bhisham Sahni among Bengali writers, who 
captured the ironies, traumas and paradoxes of Bengal's partition? 
The editor of this book searches out stories from Bangladesh and West 
Bengal to try and prove the opposite.

Meanwhile, in his foreword to the collection, Ashis Nandy emphasises 
that the silence surrounding Partition is not about geography. He 
asks why the artistic responses to genocide elsewhere in the world - 
from the Holocaust to more recent examples in Rwanda and Bosnia - 
have been so much more "voluminous"? Is the silence about the East a 
part of some larger unwillingness to remember? We dare not conjecture 
that the silence simply signifies inarticulateness: therefore the 
anthologies that would prove otherwise.

The approach in the stories varies, from the predictably violent to 
the more subtle and oblique. There is a surrealistic account of a 
man's attempt at escape, by Ateen Bandopadhyay; an ironic, vivid 
story by Ritwik Ghatak about lost homes; a moving evocation of 
abbreviated love by Dibyendu Palit. The more the distance in time, 
ironically, the more powerful the stories seem to be. Perhaps there 
is something to be said for temporary silence.

Mapmaking: Partition Stories from the 2 Bengals, edited by Debjani 
Sengupta, Srishti, Rs. 295.

ANURADHA ROY

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