SACW | 4 Nov. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  3 November,  2003

Notice:
The new redesigned South Asia Citizens Web web 
site is now definitively located at 
http://www.sacw.net/
The earlier URL for the South Asia Citizens Web 
web site <www.mnet.fr/aiindex> is no longer 
valid; Google cache may be used to trace pages 
held at the old location. 

_______

[1] The nuclear option ( M. Asghar Kha[n] )
[2] A season of repression? (MB Naqvi)
[3] Will there be repeal of the Hudood Ordinances? (Danish Zuberi)
+ interview with Justice (retd.) Majida Rizvi
[4] Excerpts from 'Nehru: The Invention of India by Shashi Tharoor'
[5] Book Review: 'Identity, Hegemony, Resistance: 
Towards a Social History of Conversions in 
Orissa, 1800-2000 by Biswamoy Pati' (Yoginder 
Sikand)
[6] Governed by hatred (Editorial, The Hindustan Times)
[7] A wet cracker (Sudha G. Tilak)

--------------

[1]

DAWN, 3 November 2003
The nuclear option

By M. Asghar Kha[n]

When India exploded its nuclear bomb, Nawaz 
Sharif, sent one of his ministers to seek my 
advice whether we should also explode a nuclear 
device, I advised him not to do so. However the 
widespread frenzy and a false sense of pride got 
the better of him and he took the step that was 
acclaimed in the country as an act of 
statesmanship.
If Pakistan was a non-nuclear power it would not 
be necessary for India to attack Pakistan with 
nuclear weapons even if Pakistan was the 
aggressor. It makes no sense that India should 
launch a nuclear attack against Pakistan when it 
already has three times Pakistan's strength in 
conventional weapons. It is Pakistan, a smaller 
military power that may, in desperation, want to 
use nuclear weapons in its defence.
However if it ever did so, India could retaliate 
and within minutes destroy three or four of 
Pakistan's cities and also Pakistan's main 
command and control capacity. Anything comparable 
that Pakistan could do may damage India in many 
ways but it would be nothing compared to the 
damage that would have been done to Pakistan.
Pakistan would, as a result, be mortally damaged 
whereas India would be damaged to a much lesser 
extent and would still survive as a nation. It is 
also possible that in a state of heightened 
tension, India could itself explode a bomb or two 
in one of its lesser populated or vital areas and 
then within minutes obliterate Pakistan's main 
strategic centres. India could claim that 
Pakistan had bombed it first. There would not be 
many of us left to deny this.
There are other scenarios that are frightening. 
India and Pakistan are today the only two hostile 
nuclear powers with a common border. The warning 
time is less than one minute and in this 
situation, a misreading of a warning of a nuclear 
attack could initiate a reaction and the 
launching of a retaliatory strike. This could 
initiate a nuclear conflict by miscalculation.
After the second world war there were a number of 
occasions when the two nuclear powers, the US and 
the USSR, misread the warning of a possible 
nuclear strike and ordered their interceptor 
aircraft to meet the 'hostile' aircraft, assumed 
to be carrying nuclear weapons. After some time 
and before the interceptor aircraft had made 
contact, it was discovered that the warning was 
false and the interceptor aircraft were called 
back.
In our situation, we do not have the distance or 
the time to correct our mistake. The few seconds 
that we have, will not be enough and it is likely 
that we will destroy ourselves before the error 
is recognized. There is also the danger that some 
madman on either side, might press the button in 
the belief that it was his national or religious 
duty to do so. The possibilities are frightening 
and only fools can disregard this real danger.
It has been true throughout history that an enemy 
has been created to infuse unity in a country and 
indeed sometimes desirable for it to make 
progress. The dissolution of the Soviet Union 
posed a problem for the United States and it had 
been faced for over a decade with the need to 
invent threats for its progress and stability.
The attack on the twin towers on September 1, 
2001, tragic as it was, has given the United 
States the enemy that it had begun to miss. Iraq 
and other countries that may follow are required 
to mobilize the American public to strengthen the 
government of the time. This has been true 
throughout history but the nuclear bomb has 
changed the world in the last half century.
It is now necessary that the public should exert 
its power and influence to ensure that it is not 
exploited by its government for its narrow 
political purposes. What is true of the United 
States or other powerful states applies equally 
to Pakistan - a country placed in a critical 
strategic position. Misleading the public, in 
matters of survival, could have disastrous 
consequences.
I believe that with the present unsatisfactory 
international situation with India, Pakistan 
would be more secure without nuclear weapons. If 
Pakistan has no nuclear weapons and opened itself 
to inspection to satisfy world opinion that it 
could no longer use nuclear weapons, it would 
have only a conventional threat to its security. 
India could not use its nuclear power against 
Pakistan and would have to rely on its 
conventional weapons alone.
Because of its heavy investment in maintaining a 
large nuclear capability, India's capacity to 
maintain a large conventional force at the same 
time would be limited. That itself would give 
greater security to Pakistan which should review 
its concept of defence.
In this situation, with the knowledge that India 
could not launch a nuclear strike against 
Pakistan, it should prepare only for a 
conventional war. Pakistan should maintain an 
effective air force with reasonable armoured 
strength and should cut down drastically, the 
defence expenditure on its regular land forces. 
With a large reserve of trained manpower it 
should have a large territorial reserve force 
organized in geographical sectors called up for 
periodical refresher training and capable of 
deployment at 24 hours' notice. Their weapons 
should be kept at suitable locations for rapid 
issue.
Not only would Pakistan's defence thus be 
strengthened but what is equally important, the 
defence budget could be cut down drastically. If 
other wasteful and totally unnecessary 
expenditures are cut down and the fat reduced, 
our defence would be greatly strengthened at far 
lesser cost.
It is however sad but true that few in power or 
those aspiring to get into power, will have the 
courage to face facts and accept reality. It is 
more likely that they will continue to misguide 
the people and lead the country towards greater 
misery and possible destruction.



_____


[2]

[3 November 2003]

A season of repression?

By MB Naqvi

What does the arrest of Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, 
the PML(N) leader and the ARD President, signify? 
The manner in which he was arrested and the five 
day remand that the police needed and got bespeak 
a major decision in higher quarters. Which higher 
quarters could they be? Since the PM did not know 
about it until next day and the crime of Javed 
Hashmi is the slander of the Army and Judiciary 
which is claimed to amount to sedition and 
rebellion or mutiny, it would seem to suggest 
that probably Hashmi trod on President and COAS 
Gen Pervez Musharraf's corns. It seems that our 
top soldier said to himself that enough is 
enough; this mischief must be put down good and 
proper. Hence the decision that will have to be 
owned up by Faisal Saleh Hayat and Zafrullah 
Jamali.

There is however, some logic in such things. One 
leader's arrest cannot hang in the air, alone. To 
be meaningful, it has to be applied to all 
opposition that criticises the holy cows of the 
army and Judiciary. Logic of this event, perverse 
though it is, presupposes a general crackdown on 
all opposition. Why? Because the arrest of just 
the top ARD leader will stick out like a sore 
thumb. People then will conclude that Musharraf 
has done what Mr Nawaz Sharif had done in keeping 
Asif Ali Zardari in detention by clamping all 
manner of charges; the motivation could be seen 
as personal vendetta.

The question is what lies behind this arrest - a 
single unwise decision arrived at during a rush 
of blood to the brain or is it a precursor of a 
new phase of politics? What new phase can it be? 
The Army is in power with a somewhat benign 
version of Martial Law for over four years. It 
can suddenly decide to end this benign edition of 
Martial Law and switch to a harsher one. But it 
would be mighty strange without a wholesale 
change of faces. After all there is a certain 
historical pattern or drill.

The usual drill is that when the Generals adjudge 
that the previous government has been thoroughly 
discredited and unpopular, they takeover - not 
without their own manoeuvres. All dictators' 
opening gambit is to permit a freer expression of 
public sentiments during which the regime wants 
the public attention to remain focused on the 
corruption of the previous period. That warms the 
cockles of its heart; this is taken as the 
general acceptance of the regime. Yahya Khan 
allowed the press considerable freedom to 
criticise what went on before. Zia did the same 
until he tightened up his Martial Law and imposed 
precensorship on the press

Musharraf inherited a free press and, apart from 
putting a pro military spin on everything by the 
wired media persons, he let it be, like the 
initial years of his military predecessors. He 
too has shown the face of a ruler tolerant of 
criticism. After a while they all tightened up on 
free public expression of sentiments and party 
politics. Is Musharraf doing what others have 
done before? But there is one difference.

Military's drill is actually simple: gain 
acceptance by allowing the people to say and do 
what the previous regimes frowned upon and put 
restrictions on. The next harsh phase in intended 
to consolidate the regime by fixing up the 
opposition leadership and muzzling the press 
(other media are already under tight government 
control or influence). Then, the third phase 
begins with a new political architecture, with a 
view of making the dictator a permanent fixture 
in the political life in the shape of a popular 
hero who intends making his rule eternal. The 
effort generally produces, in all cases, a 
caricature of democracy whether of a Presidential 
kind or a Parliamentary model. Ayub Khan's Basic 
Democracy was as bogus a democracy as the 
parliamentary regime set up by Zia under his 
Eighth Amendment in 1986.

The trouble is that Musharraf has already started 
and completed the last phase' work during his 
first phase itself. The big question is whether 
Musharraf regards the Jamali regime to be 
dispensable as a part of his initial 
acceptance-seeking phase and is now going to 
consolidate the Army's grip on the state after 
which he is supposed to give the definitive 
version of a desired political structure. It was 
also a drill that as soon as the military 
dictator has given his regime the shape of a 
permanent civilian government under his own 
control, people began to show signs of unrest and 
disenchantment? Look at the prototype of military 
dictatorship of Ayub Khan. He gave his 
constitution in 1962 and took oath under it. He 
stood for election by an electorate of just 
80,000 Basic Democrats. He had hell of a job 
winning it by rigging it. Everyone could see 
that. Miss Fatima Jinnah's candidature had made 
the election campaign a quasi-revolutionary 
protest movement. After that victory Ayub Khan 
went downhill and by October 1968 a raging and 
tearing protest campaign brought him down.

By 1988, General Zia had become quite unpopular 
when God (or was it some other agency?) 
intervened. One ignores Yahya Khan because he was 
so stupid as to go to war with India only to get 
rid of East Pakistan and thought the people so 
docile as to ignore such a humiliating military 
defeat, the way he could. Unmindful of popular 
sentiments, even of his subalterns and Army's 
middle rankers, he planned a civilian regime 
under a new Yahya constitution. Boys however 
shooed him off.

Pakistanis are not so docile or stupid as not to 
get tired of unending military dictatorships. 
They are also never really taken in by the 
manoeuvres of this or that general or by a 
military-made government. Look at the four 
undoubtedly corrupt governments of Benazir Bhutto 
and Nawaz Sharif. They were not really credible. 
They were inducted into office or dismissed by 
the Army's agencies; real power had not been 
transferred from the military to these 
governments. The only restriction on the COAS of 
the day was to take the IFIs and the Viceroy with 
him. For he made or unmade governments when he 
thought time ripe to kick out one and bring in 
the other. All Pakistanis saw through this 
theatre.

BB and Nawaz Sharif remained contented 
subordinates of the COAS. The irony of it could 
not have escaped them that nominally they can 
order a COAS but in reality they served during 
his pleasure. This fundamentally important fact 
made them irresponsible, fond of protocol, pomp 
and show during the day and corrupt in the 
evenings. The point is that the country should 
not go back to make-believe governments that move 
on a pull by the puppeteer because the people can 
see no use for them.

The reason why Generals have had a free run of 
this country for so long is the deep seated 
patriotism of the people who want to go on 
cherishing their Army as a national institution 
made for one purpose only and not to push around 
the people. The much mentioned cynicism and 
apathy of the people originate in their love for 
the Army and the notion that this is the only 
Army they have. Moreover, the economic miseries 
do not leave much time to think about politics 
and to act. But fundamentally, there is still the 
unwillingness to confront the Army because it is 
one's own. But how long can the people remain the 
subjects of a dictator? Isn't there a new 
tomorrow?

As for the criticism of the Army, since it has 
been in politics for so long, how can it escape 
it? Judiciary gets the bad word because it is so 
servile to the military; citizens expect it to 
stand up for democracy and their own oath. Well, 
if the Army has to take over, let it. Why should 
it be given a certificate of good conduct for 
overthrowing a constitutional government? Now 
that the Army operates like a powerful political 
party, let it manfully face and answer 
criticisms. Either it should not take power, or 
get ready to suffer the slings and arrows from 
the opposition.

As for Musharraf's real dilemma, his political 
creation, the Jamali regime, has not succeeded. 
The name of the game is to make Musharraf a 
colossus; it has nothing to do with Jamali's or 
democracy's success. The logical option for him 
is to sack the 'real' democracy; he will scarcely 
want to reinforce failure; and start the reign of 
consolidation as best as he can, repression, 
controls and all. The alchemy of becoming 
immortal that all military dictators seek cannot 
be had. And a naked military dictatorship may not 
be acceptable to Musharraf's foreign friends. 
There maybe no way out.

Mr. Jamali could have helped, if only the 
generals can be persuaded to go back to barracks 
and Musharraf does not remain the all-powerful 
puppeteer. This is however not acceptable to him 
and that dooms the so-called 'real' democracy. Is 
repressive consolidation any option? It is 
doubtful.

_____


[3]

Newsline , October 2003

Rape of the Law
Will the NCSW's latest recommendation to repeal 
the Hudood Ordinances finally put an end to the 
dreaded law?

By  Danish Zuberi

  The Hudood Ordinances were promulgated in 1979 
by Zia-ul-Haq in his drive towards Islamisation. 
The laws came into focus in the early '80s when 
the first punishments for stoning to death and 
whipping were awarded. So began the crusade for 
the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances, spearheaded 
by Women's Action Forum (WAF). But while civil 
rights groups have over the years played a 
pivotal role in helping to dilute the negative 
effects of the Hudood Ordinances, none have been 
successful in achieving their repeal.

           The Hudood Ordinances are a compilation 
of five laws dealing with the offences of theft 
and armed dacoity; qazf (bearing false witness); 
use and trafficking of drugs and consumption of 
alcoholic beverages; rape, abduction of women and 
zina (adultery and fornication and the mode of 
executing the punishment of whipping under the 
Hudood Ordinances). Of these, the Zina Ordinance 
that deals with the offences of rape, abduction 
of women, prostitution and adultery is the most 
controversial.

             The Zina Ordinance makes adultery and 
fornication an offence. Under this Ordinance, "a 
man and a woman are said to commit zina if they 
wilfully have sexual intercourse without being 
validly married to each other." Before this 
Ordinance, fornication was not an offence under 
the Pakistan Penal Code. Adultery with a married 
woman was a private offence for which only the 
man could be punished. Under the Zina Ordinance, 
an offence of rape is committed where a person 
has "sexual intercourse with a woman or man, as 
the case may be, to whom he or she is not validly 
married" and where the act of sexual intercourse 
is committed without the consent of or against 
the will of the victim.

            Two types of punishments are 
prescribed. The maximum or the hadd punishment 
and the lesser punishment of tazir. The maximum 
punishment of hadd, is stoning to death for 
married persons and one hundred lashes for 
unmarried persons. The proof required for hadd is 
that there be four Muslim adult male witnesses of 
good repute to the act of penetration or a 
voluntary confession in a competent court of law. 
The confession can be retracted at any time 
before the execution of punishment, in which case 
it cannot be carried out. With any other type of 
evidence, including that of women or non-Muslims, 
hadd cannot be inflicted. The crime is then 
punishable by tazir, which in the case of zina is 
imprisonment for a maximum of ten years, thirty 
lashes and a fine, and for rape is maximum 
imprisonment of 25 years and 30 lashes. For 
purposes of punishment, the law draws a 
distinction between a married person and an 
unmarried one. An unmarried rapist cannot, 
therefore, ever get the maximum punishment for 
rape irrespective of how heinous the offence. 
Further, even though the hadd punishment can only 
be awarded to adults, the definition of 'adults' 
under the law may include girls as young as 
eight, the only criterion being puberty. An adult 
man is "a person who has attained the age of 18 
years" and an adult female "the age of 16 years, 
or has attained puberty".

             This definition ignores all basic 
legal principles of protecting children from 
criminal responsibility before they reach a 
certain age. The Pakistan Penal Code had 
protected minor girls by providing that sexual 
intercourse with a girl under 14, even with 
consent, would constitute rape. Not only is this 
immunity not incorporated in the Zina Ordinance, 
but the Ordinance further reduces it.

             The Zina Ordinance is fraught with 
legal ambiguities. The major flaw in this law is 
the fact that no distinction is made between 
adultery and rape. Rape is considered no more 
heinous a crime than zina. The demarcation line 
between the two offences is so thin in practice, 
that when a woman comes into the court with a 
case of rape, there is a possibility that she 
might herself be convicted of zina if she cannot 
prove the rape. The onus of providing proof in a 
rape case rests with the woman herself. If she is 
unable to prove her allegation, bringing the case 
to court is considered equivalent to a confession 
of sexual intercourse without lawful marriage.

             Over the years, the judgements passed 
by courts have often overstepped this fine line 
between the two offences. This definition of zina 
has led to a series of cases where both women and 
men have been falsely implicated on the pretext 
of not being validly married to each other. In 
the case of void marriages, the cohabitation of 
couples is taken as a "confession" of zina. The 
most notorious case is that of Mohammad Sarwar 
and Shahida Parveen (NLR 1988 (SD) FSC 188. The 
trial court in this case ruled Shahida and 
Sarwar's marriage as being illegal and awarded 
them the maximum hadd punishment of stoning to 
death. Shahida had been previously married and 
claimed to have been divorced before marrying 
Sarwar. On trial she produced a divorce deed 
allegedly bearing her ex-husband's signature. 
Since Shahida's divorce had not been registered, 
the court took the view that the divorce stood 
invalidated. Therefore, her marriage was 
considered void and taken to be a confession of 
zina.

            On appeal, her defence counsel argued 
that the statement made by the accused (that they 
were married) was not intended as a confession, 
but as a denial of the charge of zina. 
Subsequently, the couple was acquitted on 
re-trial. The principle laid down by the FSC in 
the case of Mohammad Sarwar and Shahida Parveen 
was, however, completely ignored in the recent 
case of Zafran Bibi (PLD 2002 FSC 1), where a 
woman from Kohat was awarded punishment of 
stoning to death by a sessions court. The 
prosecution while instituting the case had 
alleged that Zafran Bibi had committed adultery 
with the brother of her husband as a result of 
which she gave birth to a child when her husband 
was in jail on murder charges. The district and 
sessions judge, Kohat, had found the woman guilty 
of the offence and had sentenced her to death by 
stoning. Even though the decision of the trial 
court was reversed by the FSC, the judgement 
raises alarming legal issues which were believed 
to have been settled. According to the Maliki 
school of jurisprudence, the burden of proving 
Zafran's lack of consent by "raising alarm or 
making complaint" was shifted on her.

             From decided case law it would seem 
that the courts require "real resistance" 
(Bahadur Shah v. The State, PLD 1987 FSC 11) on 
the part of the complainant. Courts have not 
accepted that submission does not necessarily 
mean consent and it has been held (Ubaidullah v. 
The State, PLD 1983 FSC 11) that "since no 
violence was found on her body, it could be 
reasonable to infer that she was a willing party 
to sexual intercourse." To prove the offence of 
rape corroborative evidence is generally 
required. Such evidence could either be in the 
nature of marks of violence, medical evidence, or 
third party testimony. Zafran Bibi's testimony 
was accepted by the court since "there was 
nothing on record to presume that she was a woman 
of easy virtue." Proving the lack of consent 
becomes an arduous task as Pakistani law does not 
protect the rape victim from attacks on her 
character. In fact such attacks are permitted 
under the Qanun-e Shahadat Order 1984, which 
provides that "when a man is prosecuted for rape 
or an attempt to ravish, it may be shown that the 
prosecutrix was of generally immoral character." 
Any change to the rape laws would not be complete 
without reviewing the evidential requirements in 
rape cases.

             Various commissions and committees 
over the years have advocated the repeal of these 
laws. In 1997, the Commission of Inquiry for 
Women headed by Justice (Retd.) Nasir Aslam Zahid 
recommended that the Hudood Ordinances be 
repealed and that the repealed provisions of the 
Pakistan Penal Code 1860, be re-enacted with an 
amendment to make marital rape an offence and to 
impose a more severe punishment for rape on a 
minor wife. Recently the Special Committee to 
Review the (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinances, 
1979 under the aegis of the National Commission 
on the Status of Women headed by Justice (Retd.) 
Majida Rizvi also recommended repeal of the 
Hudood Ordinances on the basis that "the Hudood 
Ordinances as enforced, are full of lacunae and 
anomalies and the enforcement of these has 
brought about injustice rather than justice, 
which should be the main purpose of the 
enforcement of Islamic law." There is really not 
much left to debate on the merits of these laws. 
The only thing missing is the political will to 
tackle the issue.

  o o o

Newsline , October 2003
Interview - Justice (retd.) Majida Rizvi

"As long as the law is there it will be used to pressurise and blackmail"
--Justice (retd.) Majida Rizvi
Chairperson, National Commission on the Status of Women

By  Tehmina Ahmed

              Q: Where do things stand as far as 
the recommendations of the National Commission on 
the Status of Women are concerned?

              A: The National Commission has 
recommended the repeal of the Hudood Ordinance. 
It is a recommendatory body, so it is now up to 
the government to accept it directly or put the 
recommendation before parliament.

             Q:Was the recommendation unanimous?

              A: Out of twenty members, only two 
were for reform - the representatives of the MMA 
and the CII. The remaining said it should be 
repealed and we should go back to the older law 
at present. The government could then redraft the 
whole thing after going through our report. The 
draft should be circulated among the public and 
then let it go to parliament.

             Q: What was the old law?

              A:The Pakistan Penal Code, rape, 
abduction, kidnapping, all were governed by the 
old law. What happened was that they changed the 
definition of adultery and some other things in 
the Hudood Ordinances, otherwise many of the 
provisions are the same as the old law. In the 
Prohibition Order, which has 33 sections, four 
are of hadd, the remaining are all of the Penal 
Code, exactly picked up from the PPC. Similarly 
in the offences against property, most provisions 
are from the Penal Code.

             Q: What was the change in the case of adultery?

             A: Instead of a personal offence, it 
was made an offence against the state.

             Q:It seems that the Islamic Ideology 
Council and even the MMA are now open to the idea 
of amendment.

              A: We had representatives from the 
Islamic Ideology Council and the MMA on the 
Commission and they were the two members who 
suggested amendment. They admitted that there 
were weaknesses in the law and said they should 
be removed. But according to us, there are so 
many defects that this will not serve the 
purpose. It will have to be repealed if the 
government really wants to do something.

             Q: Those who oppose repeal claim the 
Hudood Ordinance conforms to Islamic injunctions.

              A:We agree that the law should be 
according to Islamic injunctions, but the 
provisions we have today are not according to 
Islamic injunctions.

             For example, rajam - stoning to death 
- is not mentioned in the Quran at all. They get 
it from Sunnah. They argue that while namaz and 
zakat are mentioned in the Quran, we don't know 
how to offer prayers or give zakat, so we go to 
Sunnah. But when something is not mentioned at 
all in the Quran, then why go to Sunnah?

             You can have exceptions to this rule, 
but they cannot be hadd punishment, because hadd 
are only Quranic injunctions.

             The Prophet (PBUH) was both a prophet 
and an administrator running a state. As an 
administrator, if he did allow certain things 
such as stoning to death - which was prevalent 
before Islam - then that punishment was given as 
an exception in a few cases and not as the law. 
In the holy book of the Jews, stoning to death is 
mentioned, but not in the Quran.

             Q: What about the provisions governing rape and adultery?

            A: There is the question about four 
eye-witnesses in the case of both rape and 
adultery. How is a woman going to know where and 
when she is going to be raped? And will the four 
witnesses stand and look at her? Would any Muslim 
man like to see people raping a woman by force 
and not say anything, is our society so barbaric 
and shameless?

             Q:As the law stands, is that the only 
acceptable evidence in the case of rape?

             A: It is in the case of hadd, 
otherwise the Penal Code applies and hadd 
punishment cannot be given. If we have to fall 
back on the Penal Code, then we don't need the 
provision for hadd.

             Q: Are the zina provisions still being misused to victimise women?

             A:Just three days ago, I met women in 
jail who had been charged under zina. One of them 
had remarried and her ex-husband had lodged a 
complaint four years after she left him. As long 
as the law is there it will be used to pressurise 
and blackmail.

             Q: A previous commission had 
suggested repeal of the Hudood Ordinances, in 
1997. Was there any follow-up at all?


             A: I don't know how much follow-up 
there was, but that was a short-term commission 
set up to review a range of laws, including the 
family, elections etc. We made an in-depth study 
for over a year, of each and every provision of 
the law. We had two retired judges, minority 
lawyers, Hina Jilani and Shehla Zia were members, 
the chairman of the CII and a representative of 
the MMA. All the members got together to study 
the law.

             Q: Is there a comparable situation in other Islamic states?

              A: Only in Saudi Arabia, nowhere 
else. In Malaysia, they tried in one state, but 
that was suspended. There was a punishment 
awarded recently in Nigeria, but even there the 
law apples only in certain areas, and this 
particular punishment was set aside.


_____

[4]

Magazine |  The Hindu
Nov 02, 2003

The legacy of Nehru

This short biography tells the story of 
Jawaharlal Nehru's life, deftly weaving personal 
facets with historical happenings. The author, 
SHASHI THAROOR, also analyses the principal 
pillars of Nehru's legacy to India - democracy, 
secularism, economics and a foreign policy of 
non-alignment. Exclusive extracts from Nehru: The 
Invention of India, to be released by Penguin 
Viking later this month.


THE first months of independence were anything 
but easy. Often emotional, Jawaharlal was caught 
up in the human drama of the times. He was seen 
weeping at the sight of a victim one day, and 
erupting in rage at a would-be assailant hours 
later. Friends thought his physical health would 
be in danger as he stormed from city to village, 
ordering his personal bodyguards to shoot any 
Hindu who might attack a Muslim, providing refuge 
in his own home in Delhi for Muslims terrified 
for their lives, giving employment to young 
refugees who had lost everything. In one typical 
incident of the period, Jawaharlal emerged from a 
visit to a fasting Mahatma Gandhi in mid-January 
1948 and confronted a demonstration of refugees 
chanting "Let Gandhi die!" He leapt from his car 
and dashed towards the demonstrators shouting, 
"How dare you say these words! Come and kill me 
first!" The demonstrators immediately ran away.

Affairs of state were just as draining. The new 
Prime Minister of India had to deal with the 
consequences of the carnage sweeping the country; 
preside over the integration of the princely 
states into the Indian Union; settle disputes 
with Pakistan on issues involving the division of 
finances, of the army, and of territory; cope 
with massive internal displacement, as refugees 
thronged Delhi and other cities; keep a fractious 
and divided nation together; and define both a 
national and an international agenda. On all 
issues but that of foreign policy, he relied 
heavily on Patel, who welded the new country into 
one with formidable political and administrative 
skills and a will of iron. A more surprising ally 
was the former Viceroy, now Governor-General of 
India, Lord Mountbatten.

For all his culpability in rushing India to an 
independence drenched in blood, Mountbatten made 
Nehru partial amends by staying on in India for 
just under a year. As heir to a British 
government whose sympathy for the League had 
helped it carve out a country from the collapse 
of the Raj, Mountbatten enjoyed a level of 
credibility with the rulers of Pakistan that no 
Indian Governor-General could have had. This made 
him a viable and impartial interlocutor with both 
sides at a time of great tension. Equally, as a 
Governor-General above the political fray, he 
played a crucial role in persuading maharajahs 
and nawabs distrustful of the socialist Nehru to 
accept that they had no choice but to merge their 
domains into the Indian Union. When fighting 
broke out over Kashmir between the two Dominions 
(whose armies were still each commanded by a 
British general), Mountbatten helped prevent a 
deeper engagement by the Pakistani Army and 
brought about an end to the war. And the 
Governor-General and his wife distinguished 
themselves by their personal interest in and 
leadership of the emergency relief measures that 
saved millions of desperate refugees from misery 
and worse. In 1950, when India became a Republic 
with its own Constitution, Jawaharlal arranged 
for it to remain within the British Commonwealth, 
acknowledging the British sovereign no longer as 
head of state but as the symbol of the free 
association of nations who wished to retain a 
British connection. Mountbatten's influence was 
decisive in prompting Jawaharlal to make this 
choice. Nehru's close relations with Edwina 
Mountbatten have been the stuff of much 
posthumous gossip, but his relationship with her 
husband was to have much more lasting impact on 
India's history.

As Prime Minister, Jawaharlal had ultimate 
responsibility for many of the decisions taken 
during the tense period 1947-49, but it is true 
to say he was still finding his feet as a 
governmental leader and that on many key issues 
he simply went along with what Patel and 
Mountbatten wanted. Nehru was the uncontested 
voice of Indian nationalism, the man who had 
"discovered" India in his own imagination, but he 
could not build the India of his vision without 
help. When the Muslim rulers of Hindu-majority 
Junagadh and Hyderabad, both principalities 
surrounded by Indian territory, flirted with 
independence (in Hyderabad's case) and accession 
to Pakistan (in Junagadh's), the Indian Army 
marched in and took over with scarcely a shot 
being fired. In both cases the decision was 
Patel's, with acquiescence from Nehru... .

Apart from handling weighty matters of state, 
Jawaharlal had to deal with issues of domestic 
politics. He had surprised some of his most 
ardent supporters by his reluctance to embrace 
radical change, and his willingness to retain, 
and indeed rely on, the very civil servants and 
armed services personnel who had served the 
British Raj, the "steel frame" of which continued 
as the administrative superstructure of 
independent India. The Government proved its 
worth in handling the absorption of some seven 
million refugees from Pakistan, a colossal 
political and administrative feat. But the civil 
service continued in the traditions of colonial 
governance learned from their British masters; 
Nehru did little to instil in them a development 
orientation or a new ethic of service to the 
people. Continuity, not change, was the 
watchword. Many of the freedom fighters, who had 
gone to jail while these officials prospered 
under the British, were dismayed ...

* * *

... Gandhi's assassination by a Hindu fanatic 
strengthened his hand on the communal issue. Even 
Patel agreed to the RSS being banned, though the 
ban was lifted after a year. On other questions, 
ranging from the grant of "privy purses" (or 
annual subventions to the erstwhile maharajahs to 
compensate for the loss of their princely states) 
to the clash between the right to property and 
the need for land reform, he found himself 
outmanoeuvered by the party's right wing. Patel 
ran his Home Ministry as firmly as he 
administered the country as a whole, and he 
brooked little interference from Nehru.

Lord Mountbatten left India for good on 21 June 
1948, ten months after he had presided over its 
freedom - and its dismemberment. He was succeeded 
as Governor-General of the Dominion by the man 
who had once been thought more likely than 
Jawharlal to be Gandhi's heir, C. 
Rajagopalachari. Though temperamentally a 
conservative, "Rajaji" had no patience for the 
communal sympathies of the Congress right, and so 
in his own way complemented Jawaharlal as head of 
state. But when the time came for that position 
to be converted to that of President of the 
Republic (upon the adoption of independent 
India's new Constitution on the symbolic date of 
26 January 1950, the old "Independence Day" 
becoming the new Republic Day), Patel engineered 
the election of his crony Rajendra Prasad as the 
Congress candidate. Jawaharlal had been 
completely bypassed; he was so surprised that he 
actually asked Prasad to withdraw and propose 
Rajagopalachari's name himself. Prasad cleverly 
suggested that he would do whatever Nehru and 
Patel agreed upon, at which point Nehru 
understood and threw in the towel. One of 
Prasad's first acts upon election was to ask that 
26 January be changed to a date deemed more 
auspicious by his astrologers. Jawaharlal flatly 
turned him down, declaring that India would not 
be run by astrologers if he had anything to do 
with it. This time, Nehru won.

Nehru and Patel came dangerously close to a 
public clash only once. In 1950, under pressure 
from the right to intervene militarily in East 
Pakistan where a massacre of Hindus had begun, 
Jawaharlal first tried to work with his Pakistani 
counterpart, Liaquat Ali Khan, on a joint 
approach to communal disturbances and then, when 
this had been ignored, offered President Prasad 
his resignation. (Stanley Wolpert has speculated 
that Jawaharlal, exhausted and heartsick, was 
contemplating eloping with Edwina Mountbatten, 
who had just been visiting him at the time.) But 
when Patel called a meeting of Congressmen at his 
home to criticize Jawaharlal's weakness on the 
issue, Nehru fought back, withdrawing his offer 
of resignation, challenging Patel to a public 
debate on Pakistan policy and even writing to 
express doubt as to whether the two of them could 
work together any more. The counter-assault was 
so ferocious that Patel backed off and affirmed 
his loyalty to Jawaharlal, supporting the pact 
Nehru signed with his Pakistani counterpart 
(which had even prompted the two Cabinet 
Ministers from Bengal to resign). The entire 
episode marked the closest the Congress would 
ever come to repudiating Nehru in his lifetime.

But in those early days Jawaharlal was not always 
a successful political infighter. His setback 
over Prasad's election was echoed in the 
elections to the Congress party presidency a few 
months later. Having withdrawn from the race 
himself on the grounds that it would not be 
proper for him as Prime Minister to also serve as 
party President, Jawaharlal supported his old 
rival Kripalani against the rightist 
Purushottamdas Tandon (the very man whose 
inability to win Muslim support for the 
chairmanship of the Allahabad municipality had 
given Jawaharlal his experience of mayoralty in 
1923). But Tandon had Patel's backing, and 
despite Jawaharlal's open opposition, won 
handily, with over 50% of the votes in a 
three-man field. Nehru publicly grumbled that the 
result would only please communal and reactionary 
forces in the country, and refused to join 
Tandon's Working Committee. When finally cajoled 
into doing so he made no secret of his 
reluctance. He spent the next year undermining 
Tandon much as his mentor Mahatma Gandhi had 
undermined Bose thirteen years earlier. In 
September 1951 Jawaharlal brought matters to a 
head by resigning his party positions and making 
it clear that he and Tandon could not co-exist: 
one of them had to go. Tandon did. Jawaharlal 
himself was elected Congress President, his 
earlier scruples about the Prime Minister serving 
in such a position completely forgotten.

There was another reason for the decisiveness of 
his victory. By this time Nehru's greatest rival, 
Sardar Patel, was dead. He had suffered a heart 
attack a few months after the Mahatma's 
assassination; then stomach cancer struck, and in 
December 1950, having fulfilled his historic role 
of consolidating India's fragile freedom, he 
passed away, aged 76. Patel and Nehru had also 
served as a check upon each other, and his 
passing away left Jawaharlal unchallenged. If 
ever there was a moment when he might have been 
tempted by the prospect of near-dictatorial 
authority, this might have been it, but 
Jawaharlal remained a convinced democrat. He was 
not, however, a native one. He realized that the 
Home Ministry, with its control over the 
institutions of law and order, was a valuable 
tool for a potential competitor. He was therefore 
careful after the Sardar's death to appoint only 
trusted associates - with no competing political 
ambitions or agendas of their own - to the Home 
Ministry.

* * *

Nehru: The Invention of India, Shashi Tharoor, Penguin Viking, Rs. 295.


______



[5]

Book Review

Name of the Book: Identity, Hegemony, Resistance: 
Towards a Social History of Conversions in 
Orissa, 1800-2000
Author: Biswamoy Pati
Publisher: Three Essays Collective, New Delhi (www.threeessays.com)
Year:2003
Price: Rs.90.

ISBN: 81-88789-04-6
Rs.90 (India) 

Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand

Religious conversions are a much misunderstood 
but yet hotly debated subject in India today. As 
Hindutva ideologues see it, religious conversion 
is tantamount to treason. Every Hindu less, so 
they argue, means an additional 'enemy' of the 
nation. In Hindutva discourse, Hinduism, or 
Brahminism to be more precise, is depicted as a 
supremely tolerant religion. It is said to 
believe in the inherent truth of all religions 
and, therefore, to regard conversion as 
meaningless. However, while fiercely opposing 
conversions of Hindus to other faiths, Hindutva 
groups are themselves engaged in large scale 
campaigns to convert people of other faiths to 
the Hindu fold. To them this is not religious 
conversion as such. Rather, it is simply 
'returning home' (ghar vapasi) or 'purification' 
(shuddhi) of those who are seen to have somehow 
gone 'astray'.

This slim book is a valuable contribution to the 
ongoing debate on religious conversions in India. 
Taking the tribals of Orissa as a case to 
illustrate a broader argument, Pati writes that 
the notion of Hinduism as a non-missionary 
religion is completely fallacious. The tribals, 
being outcastes, that is to say, outside the 
Brahminical caste system, are technically 
non-Hindus. Their deities and forms of worship 
have little to do with the Brahminical religion. 
Traditionally, like the ëlowí castes, the tribals 
were considered by ëupperí caste Hindus as 
ritually polluting and despicable, and the notion 
that they could be considered as fellow Hindus 
was simply abhorrent. Yet, over the centuries, 
Pati shows, the tribals have been gradually 
Hinduised. In effect, therefore, they have been 
converted to what, for want of a better term, one 
could call Hinduism. In other words, Pati argues, 
Hinduism, too, is a missionary religion, and 
differs in this from religions such as Islam and 
Christianity simply in the mode of conversion. 
While, in theory, conversion to Islam and 
Christianity takes the form of assent to a creed, 
in Hinduism conversion is a process of sustained 
cultural change, which can extend over several 
generations, resulting in the gradual absorption 
of entire social groups into the caste system, 
usually at the bottom, as 'low' castes.

Pati traces the gradual Hinduisation of the 
tribals of Orissa from the late medieval period, 
attributing this to a host of factors. Tribal 
chieftains invited Brahmin priests to settle in 
their domains, granting them vast landed estates. 
In turn for this generous patronage, the Brahmins 
provided the chieftains with the religious 
legitimacy that they sought, conferring upon them 
a ëhighí caste status as Kshatriyas or warriors. 
Over time, the nexus between the Brahmins and the 
tribal chieftains led to a transformation of the 
religious beliefs and practices of the tribals 
themselves, as Brahmins took over tribal shrines 
and effectively Hinduised them. The most striking 
example in this regard is the tradition of 
Jaganath, arguably the most popular 'Hindu' deity 
in Orissa today, who, Pati argues, was originally 
the patron deity of the Savara tribe, but is 
today regarded as a form of Vishnu.

The Hinduisation of the tribals of Orissa, Pati 
writes, was further accelerated with the 
expansion of British rule in the region. The 
coming of the British enabled large numbers of 
Hindus to enter the tribal areas and take over 
tribal lands. In turn, this led to the expansion 
of various Hindu cults among the tribals. For 
some tribals, Hinduisation was seen as a means 
for upward social mobility, and they used this as 
a way to assert claims for a higher social 
status. Yet, this did not go unchallenged by many 
ëupperí caste Hindus themselves, who regarded 
this as a powerful means to challenge their own 
hegemony. On the other hand, Pati says, some 
Hindus deliberately sought to Hinduise the 
tribals to promote their own political agendas, 
as in the case of the Gandhians working in the 
area from the third decade of the twentieth 
century.

Today, Pati says, the politics of conversion in 
the tribal tracts in Orissa have led to 
considerable  tension and even violence. 
Hinduised tribals now observe strict rules of 
untouchability vis-ý-vis the local Dalits and 
there have been several incidents of attacks on 
the latter. On the other hand, many tribals have 
converted to Christianity in an effort to improve 
their social status and in protest against 
ëupperí caste hegemony. This has led to Hindutva 
groups spreading their activities into very the 
area, instigating Hinduised tribals to attack 
Christian tribals.

As this timely book tells us, the notion that 
Brahminical Hinduism is a strictly 
non-proselytising religion, which is then used as 
an argument to put forward the claim of an 
inherent Hindu tolerance, is misleading. Rather, 
every religion with universal claims does indeed 
have a missionary agenda. Pati illustrates this 
very clearly in the case of Hinduismís spread 
among the Orissa tribals. Unfortunately, while 
much has been written on Christian, and, to a 
lesser extent, on Muslim, missionary activities 
in India, almost no literature is available on 
Hindu missionary movements. This book is a 
pioneering attempt in this regard, and hopefully 
will inspire similar writings on conversions to 
Hinduism in other parts of India.

_____



[6]

The Hindustan Times, November 4, 2003  | Editorial 

Governed by hatred
  The trivial incident which led to a riot in a 
Gujarat town showed yet again how the atmosphere 
in the state has become vitiated under Narendra 
Modi.

The encouragement which organisations bent on 
widening the communal divide have received under 
the Modi government has obviously enabled them to 
spread the poison of disharmony more effectively 
in Gujarat than elsewhere. Unless the 
degeneration that has taken place under official 
patronage is recognised, it will be impossible to 
understand how the attempt of two Muslim boys to 
retrieve their cricket ball from a temple can 
spark off an outbreak in which three people were 
killed. Evidently, the venomous propaganda 
directed against the minorities by organisations 
affiliated to the Sangh parivar is responsible 
for turning Gujarat into a communal tinderbox. 
Such diatribes have also been grist to the mill 
of the Muslim fundamentalists, who have tried to 
lure the victims of the riots to the path of 
extremism.

Gujarat, of course, has a sad history of such 
outbreaks. Soon after the BJP came to power, the 
state saw concerted attempts to browbeat the 
Christians, especially in the Dangs area. 
Officials also tried to carry out a census of 
sort to identify the Christians, which persuaded 
the National Commission for Minorities to seek 
clarifications from the state government. But 
what was a relatively low-key communal 
polarisation under former Chief Minister 
Keshubhai Patel became a dangerously provocative 
affair under Mr Modi in the aftermath of the 
Godhra carnage. Though some amount of calm has 
been restored, Sunday's violence confirmed that 
the situation is still far from being normal.

It seems that the chief minister has convinced 
himself that his hawkish image is an asset to 
himself and his party. This combative attitude 
explains why he described the riots in which 
2,000 people died as "some stray incidents" in 
his letter to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The 
letter was also a virtual protest against the 
steps which the Supreme Court was taking to undo 
the miscarriage of justice in the Best Bakery 
case, when witnesses turned hostile apparently at 
the behest of Sangh parivar activists. When 
lawlessness is encouraged from the highest 
levels, there is always the danger of riots.

_____

[7]

The Hindustan Times
November 4, 2003  

A wet cracker
Sudha G. Tilak
  Let's begin with the festival of lights that 
went by. In a recent article, The Beeb and 
Beelzebub (October 29) Samata Party leader Jaya 
Jaitly rued that post the Tehelka episode, she 
and her honest pals have been unable to celebrate 
Diwali as they are victims of the sting operation.

Some three years ago, on a pre-Diwali morning, I 
walked into Tarun Tejpal's office. It was a 
cheerful place done up in orange, lime and blue, 
lightened further by a late autumn sun slanting 
in. The newsroom crackled with debates and 
voices; and in the art room someone strummed a 
guitar while working on a web design. In his den, 
Tarun spoke of things close to his heart: 
writing, books, the thrill of web news, the 
effervescence of a new innings in Indian 
journalism and in the end said, "Why don't you 
join?" I mumbled, "Isn't politics very dirty in 
Delhi?" He cackled and said, "Ask the boys in the 
basement, they will tell you how dirty it gets".

I did join the gang, but was never in the know of 
what the basement boys were up to. They seemed 
focused like ants on a pre-winter day. Filing 
into their glass cabins, working on late in the 
night, chatting only when we crossed paths in the 
corridor. One day, like many others in the 
office, I found out what they had been busy 
about. Together, we watched on a giant screen in 
a hotel room as Bangaru Laxman closed his drawer 
on a wad of money; and watched the most proper Ms 
Jaitly, enthroned in a sofa at the defence 
minister's home, airily commanding someone to 
conduit a donation.

Today (two years and seven months, as Jaitly 
keeps count), the office of boundless energy and 
bright ideas has been fossilised. We had walked 
out last, looking behind our shoulders as the 
furniture was being sold; the computers plucked 
out of their wirings, the kabariwalla weighing 
the paper we had all collected in our lockers and 
the voiceless building stood plundered of the 
footfalls that kept the place alive.

Yet astonishingly, it is Jaitly who calls herself 
a victim and worries about her dark Diwali. 
Obviously, she has read her festivity rules 
wrong. Two years after the exposé, George 
Fernandes is still defence minister. Jaitly's 
position as leader of the Samata Party has not 
been challenged. As for the army officers who 
were 'suspended' and recommended for a court 
martial, reports say they are now benefiting from 
an official 'go slow'. Let's get one simple fact 
right. The only victims here are the journalists 
who have been hounded, jailed, probed, 
investigated and forced out of business after the 
exposé. Not those who have got back their jobs 
and their posts in the government despite 
incriminating visual evidence against them.

Evidently, Jaitly's moral compass has lost 
direction. Unfortunately, she insists on making a 
public display of this at regular intervals. In 
her recent smoky past, she has written 
impassioned pieces in defence of Narendra Modi in 
Gujarat. She has held press conferences declaring 
her cricketer son-in-law innocent of match-fixing 
even before he could be investigated. But nothing 
exposes her convulsing morality more than her 
repeated and deluded arguments about Tehelka. Her 
latest article is a case in point. Jaitly accuses 
Tehelka of being a "little known" outfit run by 
"unethical journalists and professional conmen"; 
of damaging an entire establishment rather than 
catching specific corrupt persons; of "not 
cooperating" with the commission; of creating a 
"part fact, mostly fiction" film; of "luring 
people" into loose talk; of "false 
sensationalising" etc. This is old rant.

Tehelka was not a little known outfit. From the 
day it was launched, the website made national 
and international headlines. It had more than 30 
veteran journalists working for it and some of 
the best Indian writers in the world contributed 
to it. After its defence exposé, Tehelka was 
tooth combed by every investigative arm of the 
government. Its bona fides could not be 
questioned. As for creating a "mostly fictional" 
film or luring people and damaging 
establishments, Jaitly and the dirty dozens of 
others caught on the tapes best know what morally 
uplifting things they were doing at the time.

Again, these are all yesterday's news. What has 
really got Jaitly into a froth this time is the 
fact that the Hindustan Times compared the BBC's 
recent sting on the British police with the 
Tehelka exposé and raised uncomfortable questions 
about the lack of accountability in Indian public 
life (A British Tehelka, Oct. 25). "How can you 
compare Tehelka with the BBC?" she rails. Why 
not, madam? The BBC itself has beamed many 
congratulatory shows on Tehelka and its 
investigation. What is really upsetting her? Is 
it that the BBC has never made congratulatory 
programmes on Jaitly and the many worthy causes 
she espouses?

As for Tehelka's investor, Jaitly who suffers 
from selective amnesia must be reminded that the 
JPC set up by her own government gave a 
completely clean chit to Shankar Sharma, and 
rapped SEBI officials instead for some of the 
mess in the market. Jaitly's screechy 
proclamations in the public space have only 
exposed her moral derangement: what she fails to 
realise is that more than her actions on the 
tapes, her behaviour after the exposé, her 
vendetta campaign, her failure to understand what 
is right and what is wrong and be graceful about 
it has been the real exposure of her.

You need no further proof of her intellectual 
vacuum than when she writes angrily: "Parity is 
being demanded between British policemen and 
Indian politicians". Dear lady, politicians have 
greater moral responsibility to the people than 
paid employees of the government. Morality and 
accountability does not hinge on being paid by an 
exchequer.

It is also amazing how she blithely talks of 
irregular political funding and donations as 
being routine and therefore acceptable. If that 
is so, why did she not give a receipt to the 
undercover reporters while accepting the money? 
Or is she going to claim that cash transactions 
make scrupulous appearance in her official party 
ledgers?

Today I am no longer with Tehelka. But as a 
bystander, I have been a witness to Tarun's 
determined struggle to build back the edifice of 
impartial and professional journalism in India. 
And such a continuous and misplaced vendetta 
vexes and outrages me as it probably does many 
conscientious citizens.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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