SACW | 04 Jan 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sun Jan 4 00:18:14 CST 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 04 January, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[ANNOUNCEMENT: Please note, SACW dispatches are
going to be interrupted starting January 6/7 to
and are not likely to resume before February 22,
2004. ]
[1] Pakistan: The end of the beginning? (Ardeshir Cowasjee)
[2] Pakistani, Indian fishermen hope for an end to harsh treatment (Paul Haven)
[3] India: Communalism and nationalism - Congressisation of BJP (Balraj Puri)
[4] India: 'Community' and 'Nation' - Groping for
Alternative Narratives (Mahua Sarkar)
[5] India: Boycott mars Goa's Liberation fete (Devika Sequeira)
[6] India: The Judiciary in a Democracy [ A report from Delhi]
--------------
[1]
Dawn
January 4, 2003
The end of the beginning?
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Let us hope it is - and not the other way around.
As wrote William Shirer in his magnificent book,
'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich':
"And the German people? On August 19 [1934], some
95 per cent of those who had registered went to
the polls, and 90 per cent, more than
thirty-eight million of them, voted approval of
Hitler's usurpation of complete power. Only four
and a quarter million Germans had the courage -
or the desire - to vote 'No'. No wonder that
Hitler was in a confident mood when the Nazi
Party Congress assembled in Nuremberg on
September 4. I watched him on the morning of the
next day stride like a conquering emperor......".
President General Pervez Musharraf rode in four
years ago, and he still has his feet on the
ground. He does not hear voices from on high. He
remains benign. He has, nevertheless, omitted to
do many of the things he promised to do. But he
now can and should do what he must do for this
nation. Significantly and importantly, he still
remains the best of the worst to rule over us.
Our hirsute holy brigade, who kill, maim and
bully in the name of 'honour', continue to get
away with murder and with acid-chucking, and with
stripping women naked and parading them through
town centres without one gallant man coming
forward to help, to cover, and escort the victims
safely back home.
In many of its mores, this nation sticks firmly
to its primitive ways. It too often seems that we
have just come down from the trees (fast
disappearing from the land and destroyed even by
vice-chancellors of our universities), that we
have not shed our tails. The core issue is, as it
has been for decades, education - education,
education and more education.
In the larger democratic free world education is
regarded as a fundamental human right, even a
basic human right. But the 1973 Constitution to
which (in its various mangled mashed forms and
when not suspended) Pakistan has been subjected
makes no mention of education in its lengthy
listing of the people's fundamental rights.
However, the Constitution does hold the state
responsible for the alleviation of illiteracy,
the provision of free and compulsory secondary
education, and the accessibility to the masses of
technical and professional education on the basis
of merit. But for reasons of expediency and
survival, right from the maker and promulgator of
the Constitution all the way down to those who
operate it today, these exemplary stipulations
have been either ignored or put to use in a
manner guaranteed to warp and pervert the
national mindset.
Most guilty stands President General Zia ul Haq.
One of his early objectives was to 'redefine the
aims of education' and bring it in line 'with
Pakistani faith and ideology'. The subject of
Islamiat was made compulsory at all levels of
education, all the way up to BA. For over twenty
years, the children and youth of Pakistan have
been brainwashed and taught but bigotry, violence
and hate.
President General Pervez Musharraf has declared
his own war against the prevalent religious
intolerance, violence and sectarianism, which he
stated two years ago were to be 'tackled in a
systematic and methodical manner' (still
pending). He did not acknowledge that it is the
educational system now in place that fosters and
furthers these national ills, nor that if
Pakistan is to be what he wishes it to be - a
progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan -
the entire educational system would have to be
radically and completely revamped so that the
country's children are able to learn and
understand the value of the general's goals, so
that they may be taught the truth, rather than a
string of untruths, so that they may understand
and learn that honesty pays, that equality and
justice are universal attributes that are not
constrained and personalized by a pernicious
religiosity.
A report compiled by Professor A H Nayyar and
Ahmed Salim of the Sustainable Development Policy
Institute, Islamabad, entitled 'The Subtle
Subversion - The state of Curricula and Textbooks
in Pakistan' was released last year
[www.sdpi.org]. Anyone interested in the true
evils of our present education system should
obtain a copy - as should our president general.
According to this report, the curriculum wing of
the ministry of education undertook a revision of
the curricula in 2002. It failed entirely to
address the existing distortions and in certain
cases has actually added to and magnified the
most significant mutilations. The men and women
involved are obviously not up to the job - they
in fact pose a danger - and new qualified and
untainted blood needs to be recruited and put in
place.
The main problems with our curricula and
textbooks are listed in the Nayyar report :
* "Inaccuracies of fact and omissions that serve
to substantially distort the nature and
significance of actual events in our history.
* Insensitivity to the actual existing religious diversity of the nation.
* Incitement to militancy and violence, including
the encouragement of Jihad and Shahadat.*
Perspectives that encourage prejudice, bigotry
and discrimination towards fellow citizens,
especially women and religious minorities, and
towards other nations.
* A glorification of war and the use of force.
* Omission of concepts, events and material that
could encourage critical self-awareness among
students.
* Outdated and incoherent pedagogical practices
that hinder the development of interest and
insight among students."
For instance, the textbooks on social studies
misrepresent and distort events that are within
the living memory many of us, of a good chunk of
the population. The lies are glaring, systematic
and deliberate.
As for history, its books are littered with
omissions, misinterpretations, falsehoods and
downright lies. It is totally selective and
simply ignores many historical periods of our
part of the world, thus making it impossible for
any student to sensibly and chronologically
interpret historical events. Worse, says the
report, is the fact that "the material is
presented in a way that encourages the student to
marginalize and be hostile towards other social
groups and people in the region."
The entire curricula lay an extraordinary stress
on the never defined 'ideology of Pakistan'. The
phrase was coined in 1962 by a member of the
Jamaat-i-Islami to suit his party's special brand
of politics. The textbooks equate the phrase with
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, putting into his mouth words
that would never have entered his head and which
he certainly never enunciated.
Our present education system is loaded with
religious teachings and more or less leads
students to believe that the sole essential
education is that of Islamiat, and an Islamiat
with a particularly narrow viewpoint, filled with
exclusivist and divisive tendencies.
Even the Constitution, wide open to
misinterpretation as it is, is deliberately
misinterpreted.
The ministry of education, which supposedly
controls the provincial textbook boards, is
either totally oblivious of the calibre of the
citizens its system is churning out, or it has
its own sinister agenda in direct contradiction
to the stated objectives and principles set and
stated by the president-general, the man guiding
the fate and destiny of this nation.
The Nayyar report must be widely circulated, it
must be quoted, and there must be much more
written on the various points and problems it
deals with and on its recommendations. Hopefully
the men and women of the education ministry, for
the first time in Pakistan's history, will heed
sensible advice offered for free and not
constitute another useless forum to discuss and
write another self-defeating report on this
report. We have already lost fifty-six years.
______
[2]
azcentral.com
Pakistani, Indian fishermen watch peace efforts
2 nations' villagers hope for an end to harsh treatment
Paul Haven
Associated Press
Jan. 3, 2004 12:00 AM
KARACHI, Pakistan - India and Pakistan have gone
to war three times and set off alarm bells with
nuclear brinkmanship. They have accused each
other of terrorism, shut their border crossings,
tailed diplomats and cut off air service.
But largely unnoticed are the poor fishermen in
the choppy waters of the Arabian Sea who have
borne the brunt of 56 years of enmity by being
tossed into jails.
It is a ritual of contempt and mistrust that has
ensnared illiterate villagers who toil to earn a
few dollars a day fishing from battered trawlers.
Those who stray into the wrong waters,
accidentally or not, are jailed, sometimes for
years, with no access to lawyers or consular
officials and no contact with their families.
"It's the most frightened I've ever been," Yousuf
Kachi, a Pakistani fisherman released by India in
November, said of the night in 2002 when his boat
was boarded by sailors with machine guns who said
his boat was in India's waters.
Kachi and other fishermen from both nations
recently spoke about their ordeals, and all
expressed hope that recent peace overtures
between India and Pakistan will put an end to the
arrests.
The two nuclear-armed nations have been gingerly
exploring peace since spring. And in the first
visit to Pakistan by an Indian leader since early
1999, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee plans
to attend a summit Sunday through Tuesday in
Islamabad.
As part of their efforts to cool tensions, both
sides' armies have stopped artillery shelling
across the line that divides Kashmir, the
Himalayan region claimed by both, and the
governments are re-establishing air, rail and bus
service and resuming diplomatic ties.
In recent months, Pakistan and India also have
cut back on detaining fishermen and released
some, but more than 130 still languish in jail.
Kachi said that after his boat was boarded, he
and 13 other men were forced to follow an Indian
patrol boat to Jamnagar in the western Indian
state of Gujarat, about 125 miles southeast of
the border.
They were put into a small room with another
boatload of Pakistani fishermen. Kachi said there
was no room to sit, and the men were not given
food for two days.
Finally, the fishermen were taken to a prison
about four hours away. They were given buckets
and mops and told to start cleaning.
"The inmates were yelling at us, telling us that
Pakistanis were dirty, filthy people," said
Kachi, a slight man with no formal education who
thinks he is probably about 60. "The inmates
said: 'You are just here to clean the filth off
our toilets. You are nothing.' "
Kachi said the Pakistanis were held in a separate
part of the jail, but they were subjected to
verbal abuse every day as they performed menial
tasks in the main cell blocks. Some of the men
were beaten, both by Indian guards and other
inmates, he said.
"It was terrifying. There were rapists and serial
killers there," he said. "The Indians were trying
to make it clear to us they thought we were the
worst type of people, lower even than their
criminals."
Both India and Pakistan claim they hold fishermen
who stray into their waters on suspicion they
might be spies. But Kachi said he and the other
men were never interrogated or accused of
anything while they were held.
They were not granted access to Pakistani
officials until a few days before they were
released. The men had occasionally been given pen
and paper to write to their families, but Kachi
said that when he returned home he found his wife
and six daughters had not received a single one
of the letters he had a literate inmate write for
him.
Treatment is no better for Indian fishermen caught in Pakistani waters.
Rameshbhai Tandel, a 42-year-old from Salaya
village, not far from Jamnagar, said he was
asleep when his boat drifted into Pakistani
territory in May and was quickly spotted by a
coast guard vessel.
"I was scared like anything," Tandel said, adding
that two fellow fishermen started weeping.
Altafbhai Khan, who was arrested with Tandel and
spent four months in custody with him in Karachi,
said police beat them the first few days. But he
said their treatment improved considerably after
they were taken to jail, and they count
themselves lucky.
"There are so many fishermen who earn their bread
on the high seas who remain confined in jails in
Pakistan for a year, or sometimes two or three,
and come back with marks of torture," he said.
Pakistan still holds at least 102 Indian
fishermen. India has 29 Pakistanis in custody.
With the improvement in relations, officials of
the two countries are discussing ways to reduce
incidents.
For fishermen like Kachi, the thaw is long overdue.
"Both countries should stop doing these things to
us poor people. They are giant nations and we are
just fishermen, not important people at all," he
said. "What threat could a dozen fishermen
possibly pose."
______
[3]
Deccan Herald
January 03, 2004
Communalism and nationalism
Congressisation of BJP
By BALRAJ PURI
The BJP not only accommodates more diversities
than the Congress, it has stolen the latter's
nationalist robes
The election results in four states in the vital
Hindi belt of the country have defied pollsters,
baffled the losing party and exceeded the
expectations of the winning party.
Does it mean that the people of the country have
become more communal than they used to be in
Gandhi-Nehru era? Is the battle of secularism
lost? In many respects the communalism-secularism
agenda of political discourse in India would lose
much of its relevance, unless the terms are
redefined more sharply.
The dilemma of present day secularists - who were
a part of the nationalist movement - started when
they began equating and decrying every
sub-national identity along with communalism.
Thus the Congress party's main target in the last
UP election was Mulayam Singh and not the BJP as
its leaders held that casteism was worse than
communalism. The ground reality is that the only
alternative to the BJP in UP today is the
Samajwadi Party whereas the Congress hardly
matters there. On the other hand even the RSS,
which seems to have grown wiser, seized the
opportunity, to woo Mulayam Singh. Its Kshetra
Sanghchalak (regional head) Ishwar Chand Gupta
said (on December 22) that "he was getting closer
to the Hindutva and we are hopeful that he would
not only extend increased support to the Sangh's
nationalist agenda but would even join us on
issues of national importance." It is the same
person whom the Sangh Parivar used to call
Maulana Mulayam Singh.
The real question in India today is uniformity
versus diversity. The BJP and its predecessor Jan
Sangh started as parties of uniformity with a
slogan of Hindi, Hindu and Hindustan and as a
champion of a strong, centralised unitary form of
constitution. Today it accommodates far more
diversity than its main rival. It leads a
government which includes hardened RSS workers,
socialists and regional outfits. All opponents of
unitary constitution and votaries of maximum
autonomy for states like Dravidian parties, the
Akali Dal and till recently the National
Conference have been its allies. In fact all
Dravidian parties - ruling and in opposition -
who once threatened secession from India are
vying with one another to collaborate with the
BJP.
Militant collusions
How far the BJP can go to accommodate
secessionist groups is ironically highlighted by
the RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya. Its issue of 7
December focuses on North-East and gives details
of the BJP's collusion with 'militant',
secessionist and 'pro-conversion' elements in
these states for 'political gains.' Panchajanya
reports that the BJP is a member of the ruling
National Democratic Alliance and five of its
seven legislators are ministers in Naglanad. Its
adds that the Alliance came to power with "the
help of the militant organisation NSCN-IM" and
that its government is known for funding church
activities for the last many years.
Similarly in Mizoram, the BJP supported the MNF
in the recent election to keep the Congress out.
The BJP accommodates not only regional
sentiments, however chauvinistic, but also makes
all possible compromises with caste groups. Thus
it took all the risk involved in supporting
unpredictable Mayawati as the chief minister to
neutralise the scheduled castes and invited her
to campaign for it in the Gujarat elections. It
is oversimplification to interpret Modi's victory
as that of the Hindutva, though the communal
massacre did polarise the voters. But the fact
that he went out of his way to woo scheduled
castes, scheduled tribes and that he himself
belonged to an OBC, too, were contributory
factors.
The ideological and ethnic sweep of the BJP is
too wide - from Christian militants to Hindu
militants - to easily comprehend and counter by a
party like the Congress which has become too
purist and uniformist to fit into Indian reality.
As a party of the freedom movement it does try to
revive nostalgic memories of its role of a party
of Indian nationalism. But it has not noticed how
its rival the BJP is gradually co-opting all
icons of the freedom movement and has started
claiming that it is the real inheritor of the
freedom movement.
Long ago Gandhi was acclaimed as one of its
heroes by the RSS, which was once accused of his
murder. The parivar had all along owned Sardar
Patel as iron man of India and uncompromising
nationalist. Vivekananda and Tilak have been its
revered figures. The BJP has started celebrating
birth anniversaries of Subash Chander Bose and
Bhagat Singh.
Dividing line
So far the dividing line between the BJP and the
secularists used to be Nehru. But recently Party
President Venkaiah Naidu claimed that his party
was doing precisely what the Congress used to do
under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru. The
ease with which stolen robes could fit the new
wearers is also due to the changed definition of
nationalism. In Gandhi-Nehru era, it was defined
in terms of hostility to British imperialism
which has disappeared and replaced by Pakistan as
main threat to Indian nationalism. In its
anti-Pakistan role, the BJP scores better than
other parties. Its hostility to Indian Muslims is
mainly an extension of its anti-Pakistanism.
As it is the space for the Congress as the main
alternative to the BJP has shrunk. It has no more
monopoly of Indian nationalism or inheritance of
the freedom movement. It has neither accommodated
within its fold ideological and ethnic
diversities nor has so far been unwilling to
forge alliances with other parties. In that
respect it has almost replaced the BJP as a party
of uniformity which further tend to circumscribe
its role.
Thus we are witnessing a process of what may be
called Congressisation of the BJP or the
BJPisation of the Congress. However this process
could be reversed if the Congress and the
"secular" parties go beyond "exposing duplicity,
hypocrisy and opportunism" of the Sangh parivar.
Their efforts will be far more credible if they
show a better understanding of the Indian
realities, update and refine their ideology,
redefine certain terms like secularism and
nationalism and improve their tactics and
strategy.
_____
[4]
Economic and Political Weekly
December 27, 2003
'Community' and 'Nation'
Groping for Alternative Narratives
In the context of the mounting evidence of
calculated mass brutality against religious
minorities it is tempting to hold on to a
comforting picture of India as a political
community that despite its internal cleavages
'pulls together' because of the innate goodness
of its individual citizens. But is this the best
that the left-liberal opposition to the Hindu
right can do? Are we now reduced to celebrating
every isolated story of individual courage - as
seen in 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' - in our desperate
search for assurances?
Mahua Sarkar
Aparna Sen's latest film, 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' -
overwhelmingly billed as a 'love story' set
against the 'backdrop of communal violence'1 -
was released in 2002 in the wake of a brutal
pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat that left
hundreds dead, and many more traumatised and
destitute. Judging from the enthusiastic response
and the awards it has won since then,2 including
the Nargis Dutt Award for best film on national
integration,3 it would seem that the film has
struck a chord with the outrage and frustration
that many liberal and secular-minded Indians feel
in the aftermath of the Gujarat violence. A
survey of the various reviews in the media as
well as informal discussions on internet sites
indicates a general consensus among viewers that
'Mr and Mrs Iyer' is a masterful exploration of
'human nature and relationships',4 and 'a
powerful political statement about communal
conflict'.5 At the 50th National Film Awards in
July 2003, the film was lauded
"Šacross-the-boardŠfor its restrained and
compassionate account of ordinary individuals
caught in senseless conflict".6 The themes that
recur in many of these discussions are: the bus
as an allegory for 'India', the journey as a
'typical Indian experience', communal violence as
'interruption', Meenakshi Iyer's dilemma as
'every Indian's dilemma', and her 'awakening' or
'coming of age' as a human being, and especially
as a woman, as an inner journey that is shared by
the audience in general and, presumably, Indians
in particular.7
It is perhaps not difficult to see why 'Mr and
Mrs Iyer' might appeal to so many viewers with
ostensibly 'liberal/secular' and middle class
sensibilities. The film's depiction of a wry
pluralism in the opening sequences on the bus, as
captured through the reluctant accommodations the
linguistically and culturally diverse mix of
testy passengers make for each other, brings back
nostalgic memories of a rhetoric of 'unity in
diversity' that permeated so much of India's
public cultural discourse, well into the 1980s.
As the following excerpt from one review of the
film suggests, in the 1970s and 1980s, when mass
agitations brought people with different
religious beliefs together around issues such as
rising food prices, dowry deaths, or the curbing
of democratic rights,8 the idea of a 'plural'
India seemed relatively uncomplicated:
As a [middle-class] HinduŠI grew up knowing that
a multi-religious, tolerant and secular society
was a given and the occasional eruptions of
ethnic [sic] violence were aberrations resulting
from modern India's traumatic birth.9
One could of course question whether that
'tolerant society' of middle class majoritarian
imagination ever looked quite so wholesome from
the point of view of religious minorities of any
class backgrounds, not to mention the many
internally colonised (along axes of caste or
gender, for instance) and displaced peoples
within the territory of independent India. What
is undeniable, however, is that even such
privileged and rarefied visions of pluralism are
increasingly difficult to sustain in the ugly
political climate of contemporary India.
Today, communal riots - shamefully common enough
in the post-independence history of India - seem
to have turned into open massacres of minority
populations by majority Hindus, staged most
recently in Gujarat, apparently with
carnivalesque fanfare and 'a special savagery',
with the active participation of 'educated'
middle class Hindus, not to mention the support
and help of state officials.10 In report after
report, one reads about the 'chillingly unique'
nature of the violence - especially sexual
violence against women and even children,
presumably "Šas a means of proving the
masculinity" of Hindu men - during the recent
pogroms in Gujarat.11 According to some, the
'intensity of torture' and "the sheer opulence
and exuberance in forms of cruelty" on display in
Gujarat exceeds the known horrors of the 20th
century, including the subcontinent's own record
of violence during the partition riots.12 The
gruesome pictures emerging from the wreckage
would seem to confirm this view.13 What is more,
by all accounts, the events in Gujarat in 2002
could have been anticipated from the various
experiments of the Sangh parivar throughout the
1990s - from Surat to Bombay to Bhopal.14 In the
face of this mounting evidence of calculated,
rational mass brutality against Muslims in
particular, and religious minorities in general,
it is tempting to hold on to a comforting picture
of India as a political community that, despite
its internal cleavages, 'pulls together', thanks
to the innate goodness of its individual
citizens.15 But is this the best that the
left-liberal opposition to the Hindu right can
do? Should we let our disgust and outrage at the
Sangh parivar and its politics of hatred and
terror beat us into accepting just any vision of
'community' and 'integration' that is served up?
Or should we be ever more vigilant today about
the terms in which that community/nation is
imagined, and the conditions of integration that
are presented in a narrative - state-sponsored or
otherwise? Are we now reduced to celebrating
every isolated story of individual courage in our
desperate search for assurances, maybe even
redemption? Or, should we pause to question what
characterisation of the citizen-subject is made
available in a film like 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' before
we rush to identify with it?
It is remarkable how often the idea of an
essential humanity of Indians surfaces in the
various commentaries on 'Mr and Mrs Iyer'.16
Consider for instance the following excerpt from
one review:
Aparna Sen's story of an unlikely love borne
against a backdrop of communal violence makes for
a deeply touching filmŠBlending social comment
with a moving tale of disparate people thrown
together by circumstance, 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' is an
evocative film that articulates the simple truth
of the human condition and it's [sic] natural
predisposition for humanity, as the central
protagonist overcomes her own cultural and
religious prejudices to embrace her fellow
traveller...In Meenakshi's silent awakening, the
director expresses her own hopes for a similar
transformation of Indian society?.17 (emphasis
added).
Predisposition to 'Indianness'
Here, the author not only glorifies individual
action, but also naturalises it as a result of a
'predisposition', divesting it in the process of
all conscious political content. 'Action' in such
a view is understood not as 'doing', but as
'transformation/awakening' - something that
'happens' to the actor, that s/he undergoes
rather than consciously does in the face of
injustice. The assumption, in short, is that
people are inherently good, and when faced with a
crisis, their humanity is 'aroused'18 prompting
them to 'assist each other as good humans
must'.19
In another article, the idea of inherent humanity
is conflated with yet another essentialism: 'true
Indianness':
Meenakshi's dilemma belongs to all Indians
ŠDespite the virulent divisive propaganda that is
so current today, few of us will betray our duty
as true Indians to protect fellow citizens of
different religions. And this is the Indianness
that the director brings into focus so sharply
and clearly.20
The unwavering belief in the essential
benevolence of Indianness in these articles is
truly astounding, given that most survivors from
Gujarat report fleeing mobs ranging from 2-3,000
to 20-22,000 people strong, armed with swords,
trishuls and other instruments that could be
employed to kill.21 Almost nowhere one hears of
counter-mobilisations of any consequence that
could stem the tide of violence. Even the film,
in spite of its obvious focus on individual grit,
shows that very few people are truly inclined to
protest injustice done to others. Indeed, one of
the film's most trenchant, if somewhat muted,
criticisms is lodged in its rather dispassionate
depiction of the ease with which the marooned
passengers moved onto perfectly mundane concerns
and conversations so soon after they witnessed
the Muslim couple being dragged off the bus to
their death. It is hard to say what is more
frightening in the film: the implied violence of
the mob, or the incredible apathy of the
bystanders - those that Sumanta Banerjee has
recently called the 'silent majority'. In
Banerjee's words,
After every major communal riot, people like us
(both liberal and Leftists) who want to believe
in the humane qualities of Indians go on
reiterating the old cliché - the majority of
Indians are secular-minded and all Hindus and
Muslims believe in living together in peaceful
harmony! We describe them as the 'silent
majority', and pity them as mute observers of
vicious riotsŠ (refusing) to face up to the fact
that the silence of this 'silent majority' often
amounts to acquiescence in communal riotsŠ22
Assertions of faith in individual sense of duty
and isolated acts of courage at this juncture in
India's history thus appear to be little more
than wishful thinking, if not outright
delusional. In my reading, the popularity of a
film like 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' has to be understood
within this larger politics of disavowal that
seeks solutions to collective problems in
individual acts of bravery or humanism, shying
away in the process from the urgent need for
collective political mobilisation.
It is also worth noting the ease with which most
of the commentaries on the film identify
Meenakshi Iyer's dilemma as 'every Indian's
dilemma', even though the bus was full of
characters - all Indians - with dilemmas that
were per force quite different from hers. Why do
the dilemmas of the Muslim couple (to lie about
their names or not), or that of Raja (whether to
pass as a Hindu man or not), or that of the
intruders, for that matter (to kill or not) not
constitute every Indian's dilemma? From what
subject location is it possible to assume that
the only relevant choices confronting 'true
Indians' today are that of either 'protecting'
others or, presumably, being silent? Or,
conversely, what enables us to imagine that 'true
Indians' are those who face the specific set of
rather privileged dilemmas that an upper caste
middle class Hindu person might face in India
today? What, in other words, is the definition of
a 'true Indian' embedded in such thinking? Why
should we read the film, as Renuka Viswanathan so
easily does, as a testament to 'what it means to
be an Indian woman today',23 rather than what it
might mean to be an upper caste, middle class
Hindu woman confronting a mob consisting of right
wing Hindu in India today? Can we even begin to
approach what it must have meant to be the women
who were buried in the mass graves of Dudheshwar,
or Sarkhej, or Naroda Patiya in the spring of
2002 from the choices Meenakshi Iyer faces on
that bus?
Love in the context of war/violence is of course
a familiar trope. We have all seen films in which
two lovers are separated by war, where violence
intervenes in direct and immediate ways in their
lives. In 'Mr and Mrs Iyer', however, the
violence is somehow conveniently distant from the
main characters, always happening to others,
providing a riveting context for the inner drama
of the heroine's 'growing up' to unfold. The
intrusion of the murderers certainly rattles
Meenakshi enough to unsettle her usual casteist
sensibilities, surprising Raja, the audience, and
perhaps even Meenakshi herself. But the film
never really shows her directly in danger from
the Hindu mob, either in the bus or later in the
guesthouse - that is, any more than anyone
(certainly any woman) travelling on her/his own
might be from any mob, anywhere. As a Muslim man,
Raja of course could be in grave danger from a
Hindu mob seeking out Muslims. Yet, he escapes
because Meenakshi claims him to be her husband.
But, could we imagine Mrs Iyer standing up for
just any Muslim man in the same way? More
importantly, could we imagine her succeeding even
if she were to try? What if it were someone who
dressed and behaved like Iqbal Ahmad Khan, the
old man who was taken away, but were 30 years
younger? Would she still be able to convince the
intruders that Raja were indeed her husband, Mani
Iyer? What, then, enables her to succeed in her
dramatic attempt at intervention?
To answer this question, it would be instructive
to take a closer look at the film's
characterisation of the three Muslim passengers.
Iqbal Ahmad Khan and his wife Najma are portrayed
as elderly, old-fashioned people, who talk
nostalgically of a bygone era of grace and
courtliness, and are distinctly ill at ease in a
bus full of screaming, westernised teenagers.
They also wear clothes that, at least in the
subcontinent, are associated with Muslims, even
if not exclusively. Khan Sahib even sits down to
read his Maghrib namaaz in the middle of the bus,
much to the expressed irritation of another
passenger, a Bengali man, who mutters "These
people are something elseŠBloody terrorists",
signalling to the audience that he himself is not
explicitly religious and likely Hindu - in short,
what passes for 'secular-minded' in common
parlance in India. Frankly, it is hard to believe
that the Hindu 'fanatics' really needed any
assistance from the lone Jewish passenger in
spotting the couple as Muslims, at least on that
bus.24
In sharp contrast, Raja Choudhury bears no mark
of his ethnicity or religious affiliation. A
wildlife photographer who holds his own anywhere
- whether in the city or the densest jungles,
from the foothills of the Himalayas to the
forests of Kerala - Raja is the modern subject
par excellence. He is well travelled,
cosmopolitan, and sees the world - including the
violence inflicted on other Muslims marked by
their adherence to religious beliefs and
practices - through the panoptical eye of the
camera. Unlike Iqbal Ahmad Khan and Najma, who
are, arguably, associated with India's past, Raja
is presented as secular, and decidedly of the
present, who berates Meenakshi for not keeping up
with the 21st century, and then proceeds to
introduce her to the joys of enlightened vision.
He is also the true subject of history, enjoying
the privilege of mobility unhindered by
discernible roots in any tradition, observing and
recording everything, but himself always
remaining unseen, unmarked, and somehow above the
fray. Indeed, it is as if everyone in that film
exists to explain, validate and serve what Raja,
the enlightened subject of India's imagined
present and desired future, stands for. Even the
police officer, who was conspicuously absent when
the older Muslim couple were being dragged to
their death, readily offers special assistance to
Raja, presumably because they are both modern,
urban, middle class men, who shared an interest
in photography! One could even argue that it was
Raja's image of an enlightened modern man that
saved Meenakshi and her son from being marooned
like the rest of the passengers in the midst of a
riot-torn area.
It is difficult not to like Raja Choudhury; he is
handsome, suave, cosmopolitan - a person one
could take home with oneself, pass of as a Hindu
in a jam, and, god forbid, even love, if only
secretly! One is of course relieved that he did
not fall victim to the fanatical mob, and
shocked, as Meenakshi is, at the possibility that
'it could have been (him)!' But, let us pause for
a moment to consider what we are being asked to
endorse here - manifestly or not. First, members
of minority communities can survive in
contemporary India only if they are willing and
able to strip themselves of all telltale signs of
their difference from Hindus. Indeed, the extent
to which liberal Hindus can help a Muslim or Sikh
or Christian person in the event of a crisis
depends, according to the logic of the film, on
how well the latter has effected such distancing
from the specific markers of their respective
community affiliations. Second, even such
self-erasure in terms of cultural/religious
markers will not necessarily ensure insulation
from the danger of sporadic violent attacks by
the Hindu right. In such cases, they will have to
depend on the sense of civic and moral duty of
fellow Hindus, not to mention their courage. In
return, non-Hindus will have to be prepared to
not only pass as Hindus, but to participate
willingly, even lovingly, in the game of their
Hindufication for as long as it suits their Hindu
benefactors. Note, for instance, that Meenakshi
continues to call Raja 'Mr Iyer' until the end in
the film, presumably because it is as Mr Iyer - a
Hindu look-alike - and not as Raja or Jehangir
Choudhury - a Muslim - that she can love him.
Third, Hindus should learn to temper their
conservatism and open their hearts to 'others',
who meanwhile do all the work in losing their own
'backward' religious habits so that they will not
be a nuisance to anyone, like Iqbal Ahmad Khan
seemed to have been to some of the passengers. In
return, Hindus get to enrich their lives25
immensely from the experience of closeness with
mature, modern, cosmopolitan, learned - in short
incredibly more interesting and accomplished -
minority persons, since, as we have already
established, those are the only kind that will be
allowed to survive in India today. These then, as
I see it, are the terms of integration that are
on offer to minorities on the 'mini India bus' in
the best film for national integration in 2003.
Is this really the best that we can do?
Notes
1 Poonam Joshi, 'Film Reviews: Mr and Mrs Iyer',
April 1, 2003, Asian Life, Film Reviews, BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/asianlife/film/reviews/mr_and_mrs_iyer.shtml;
Sara Rajan, 'The Toughest Topic', Time Magazine
(Asia), November 11, 2002, Vol 160, # 18;
Hindustan Times, New Delhi, July 26, 2003.
2 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' has received the NETPAC
award for Best Feature Film at Locarno
International Film Festival in 2002, the Grand
Prix for Best Feature Film at the Hawaii
International Film Festival, and most recently an
award for Outstanding International Feature at
the Reel World Film Festival 2003 in Toronto.
3 50th National Film Awards in India in 2003.
The film was also chosen as the Best Popular
film, and won awards for Best Director and Best
Actress.
4 Rukminee Guha Thakurta, 'Mr and Mrs Iyer: Love amid Terrorism',
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/aa040103a.htm
5 Joshi, 'Mr and Mrs Iyer', Film Reviews, BBC.
6 Amulya Gopalakrishnan, 'Short on Quality', Frontline, Vol 20, #17 URL:
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2017/stories/20030829001908700.htm
(Viewed on October 29, 2003) 7 Subhash K Jha,
'Cruelly Disturbing, Fascinatingly Lyrical',
www.rediff.com/movies/2002, October 3, 2002.
(viewed on August 17, 2003); Renuka Viswanathan,
"'Mr and Mrs Iyer': Such a Long Journey", EPW,
October 25, 2003.
8 See Sumanta Banerjee, 'When the 'Silent
Majority' Backs a Violent Minority', EPW, March
30, 2002; Rahul De, 'Which Mrs Iyer?' The Hindu,
February 8, 2003; Tanika Sarkar, 'Semiotics of
Terror: Muslim Children and Women in Hindu
Rashtra', EPW, July 13, 2000.
9 De, 'Which Mrs Iyer?' The Hindu, February 8, 2003.
10 Sarkar, 'Semiotics of Terror', EPW; Genocide:
Gujarat 2002. Communalism Combat, # 77-78,
March-April 2002. Mumbai.
11 The International Initiative for Justice in
Gujarat: An Interim Report, December 2002.
http://onlinevolunteers.org/gujarat/reports/iijg/interimreport.htm
(viewed on June 10, 2003); Syeda Hameed et al,
'How Has the Gujarat Massacre Affected Minority
Women?: The Survivors Speak', Fact-finding by a
Women's Panel, sponsored by Citizens's
Initiative, April 16, 2002; K G Kannabiran,
'Narendra Modi's Hindutva Laboratory' in Bad
Faith, The Little Magazine, 3(2), 2002; Praful
Bidwai, 'End the Butchery, Sack Modi', Frontline,
19(6), March 16-29, 2002.
12 Sarkar, 'Semiotics of Terror', EPW.
13 See for instance, Genocide: Gujarat 2002, pp 68-86.
14 Sarkar, 'Semiotics of Terror', EPW, Communalism Combat, March-April 2002.
15 Sara Rajan, 'The Toughest Topic', Time Asia
Magazine, November 11, 2002; Joshi, 'Mr and Mrs
Iyer', Film Reviws, BBC, Samsat, 'Defying the
Barriers of Fanaticism', July 9, 2003.
http://www.mouthshut.com/readreview/41211-1.html;
Premjit, 'Emotions Under Curfew', January 10,
2003. www.mouthshut.com/readreview/31323-1.html
16 See, for instance, Samsat, 'Defying the
Barriers of Fanaticism',
http://www.mouthshut.com. July 9, 2003; Premjit,
'Emotions under Curfew',
http://www.mouthshut.com. January 10, 2003;
Rukminee Guha Thakurta, 'Love amid Terrorism',
hinduism.about.com, Joshi, 'Mr and Mrs Iyer',
Film Reviews, BBC.
17 Joshi, 'Mr and Mrs Iyer', Film Reviews, BBC.
18 Samsat, 'Defying the Barriers', mouthshut.com
19 Premjit, 'Emotions under Curfew', mouthshut.com
20 Viswanathan, 'Such a Long Journey', EPW, October 25, 2003.
21 Crime Against Humanity, vol 1, Concerned Citizen's Tribunal, Gujarat 2002.
22 Banerjee, 'Silent Majority', EPW, March 30, 2002.
23 Viswanathan, 'Such a Long Journey', EPW, October 25, 2003.
24 The introduction of the frightened Jewish man
and the 'foreskin' drama seems entirely forced in
the film - giving rise to a whole set of off-hand
comments about the 'weird Jew' in the reviews
that border on the offensive. However, in the
interest of focus and brevity, I will not address
them in this essay.
25 Gowri Ramnarayan, 'Leitmotif of a Journey: A
Film about Love between Unlikely Candidates', The
Hindu, December 15, 2002.
_____
[5]
> Deccan Herald 20/12/03
Boycott mars Goa's Liberation fete
Devika Sequeira
PANAJI, DHNS
>
> There was a red carpet welcome for Vice-President Bhairon Singh
> Shekhawat, and a marked display of patriotic fervour at the Azad Maidan
> in this State capital on Friday morning.
>
> None of it, however, dispelled the bitter aftertaste the move to create
> RSS-designated "freedom-fighters" has left in a state that has stood
> its ground on communal amity.
>
> Mr Shekhawat felicitated 153 non-Goans drawn from across the country
> on a day that marked the 42nd anniversary of Goa's Liberation.
>
> The government said thousands of people outside of Goa had played
> a role in Goa's freedom movement, and their contribution had gone
> unrecognised. "Their moral support provided the requisite boost to the
> Liberation movement," its official note claimed.
>
> Deeply anguished by what they perceive as a debasement of their
> struggle, most of Goa's freedom-fighters who owe allegiance
> to the Goa, Daman and Diu Swatantra Sainik Sanghatana
> boycotted today's function. They said they had been "insulted
> and dishonoured" to be clubbed with those who had never taken part
> in Goa's freedom movement.
>
> "This is an insult to registered freedom fighters. How can someone's
> expression of 'willingness' to take part in Goa's freedom struggle be
> equated with what genuine freedom fighters have suffered?" asked
> Mr Vasant Molio who heads the Goa freedom fighters body.
>
> Red-faced and embarrassed by the controversy, the State's administration
> tried to persuade Mr Molio to withdraw the boycott threat, but to no
avail.
>
> A former IPS officer and one of Goa's best known freedom fighters,
> Mr Prabhakar Sinari suspects there is an "ulterior motive" to the
> recent move to create new freedom fighters under this government,
> and that too, 42 years after Goa's freedom. "Who has established
> if these are genuine freedom fighters? There are hundreds of Goan
> freedom fighters who have gone unrecognised. Many of them are
> already dead," he points out.
>
> The official criteria requires that a freedom fighter should have been
> incarcerated for a minimum of three months by the colonial regime.
>
> Many here hold the highly proactive Goa Governor Kedar Nath Sahani
> responsible for the attempts to restructure Goa's liberation history
> to suit a right-wing agenda. Known for his strong RSS background,
> Mr Sahani received quite a few slogans of support from a mostly
> non-Goan audience at the Azad Maidan.
>
> The Governor admitted that none of those felicitated today had
> actually come to Goa to participate in the struggle. They had travelled
> all the way to Pune and Belgaum to register their names and expressed
> a desire to be part of the movement, he said.
>
> Among those felicitated today were 42 new freedom fighters
> from Karnataka, 36 from Madhya Pradesh, 20 from Maharashtra,
> 10 from Jammu and Kashmir, 9 from Rajasthan, 7 from Gujarat
> and five each from Tamil Nadu and Daman, apart from others.
>
_____
[6]
India: The Judiciary in a Democracy [ A report from Delhi]
On December 12, 2003, Champa-The Amiya and B.G.
Rao Foundation held its annual lecture series at
the Deputy Speaker's Hall, Constitution Club,
Delhi. This year's discussion focussed on the
judiciary in a democracy and five eminent
speakers addressed the gathering: Om Prakash
Sharma, Nandita Haksar, Vahida nainar, Vrinda
Grover and K. John Sundar. Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed
presided. The event was a presentation of legal
perspectives on cases such as Ayodhya, Gujarat
killings, the attack on December 13, 2001 on the
Parliament, the 1984 riots in Delhi and trade
union rights in Tamil Nadu. All the speakers
stressed the urgent need to closely examine the
judicial system and the working of legal
institutions in order to prevent the further
erosion of democracy at a critical moment in
post-Independence India.
Introducing the theme N.D. Pancholi, Advocate
and human rights activist closely associated with
Ms Amiya Rao outlined the importance of a
fearless and independent judiciary in fulfilling
the mandate of the Indian Constitution. He
believed that with the rise of communal and
fascist forces there has been a growing abuse of
human rights of the people by the state. The role
of the judiciary has therefore assumed added
importance. The chairperson Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed,
provided a context to the discussion where the
people turned to the courts for relief as the
crisis of Indian democracy deepened, but faced
disappointment there too. Public Interest
Litigation, which had provided much relief to
people in the past, appeared to be derailed now
by vested interests and was no longer working in
the interests of ordinary people.
Speaking on the Babri Masjid issue, Mr Sharma
pointed out that the judiciary tends to
manipulate issues rather than resolve them, and
that matters have been pending since 1950 on the
Ayodhya cases. The legacy of the unresolved
'dispute' to essentially what is a title suit is
that the violence that it has generated since
1992, blatantly indulged in by Hindutva politics,
could have been avoided if the courts had acted
expeditiously. In a sense the judiciary was
responsible, according to O.P. Sharma, for the
destruction of the masjid; first for delaying and
second for accepting the statements of the UP
government under Kalyan Singh that it would abide
by the Supreme Court's order that the status quo
would not be violated whereas his manifesto had
made abundantly clear that his intent was to
build the Ram temple exactly where the Babri
Masjid stood. December 6, 1992 proved that Kalyan
Singh had been lying to the Supreme Court; he was
following the strategies of Goebbel the Nazi
propagandist, whose descendants these
hindutvavadis were. Mr. Sharma reminded the
audience that Goebbel worked on the principle
that repeated lying erases the truth and replaces
it with falsity. He was also concerned at the
manner in which the judges were getting isolated
from the common people as, in a democracy, it was
crucial that the judges should know the pulse of
the people. Judges were also prone to being
influenced especially at the end of their careers
as they expected to be rewarded with plum
positions for their loyalty. He was of the
opinion that judges should be barred from public
office after retirement in order to ensure their
independence. Mr. O.P. Sharma was pained by the
functioning of the Apex Court which even today
continued to delay the Ayodhya case. He believed
that the 49 accused persons, including ministers
and the DYPM in the current central government,
in the Babri Masjid demolition case should be
tried under TADA for their anti-national actions
in 1992.
Ms. Haksar focussed on issues relating to
democracy arising from the December 13 Parliament
attack case. She expressed both surprise and
concern that the High Court judgement acquitting
SAR Gilani and Afsan Guru, thereby reversing the
earlier judgement of the special trial court
awarding two death penalties to Gilani and 5
years RI to Afsan, has been regarded as miracle.
But why should the acquittal of an innocent man
be regarded as a miracle she queried. Such
reactions, where what should have been a normal
judgement is regarded as extraordinary indicate
how vitiated the perception of the judicial
system has become and suggested that there is
something very wrong with the functioning of our
democracy. Further, the judgement though pointing
to the fabrications in the arrest memos and other
lapses by the police stopped short of passing
strictures against them thereby maintaining a
deafening silence on bringing to book those who
were responsible for the concoctions. Nandita
Haksar concluded by making a strong plea for
redefining democracy according to our vision in
which a sensitive and accountable legal system
would be a fundamental cornerstone.
Ms. Vahida Nainar who has been involved in
developing an international feminist
jurisprudence on crimes against women spoke about
the genocidal project in Gujarat in 2002. The
fate of the cases -- where the ground for the
acquittals of those charged with murder and
rioting has been carefully and fully prepared-has
resulted in a crisis of belief in the judicial
system. She pointed out further, that the
individual acts of murder though prosecutable
under sections of the IPC, need to be taken
together to recognise the crimes as a whole where
the question of intent can be addressed. The
crimes in Gujarat showed that the Government of
the state was not serving the goals of the Indian
Constitution but was instead serving the goals of
a Hindutva nation and was not going to provide
justice to the victims in Gujarat. Ms Nainar
stated that Indian courts should draw from
international law to redress the victims of the
genocide and that they have in the past drawn
from international provisions where there has
been no domestic law available. Vahida Nainar
also expressed serious concern at the recent
trends in our political system which regards
elections by themselves as the basis for claiming
the practice of democracy rather than the
upholding of all the institutions that make for
the rule of law.
Ms. Vrinda Grover, advocate and human rights
activist, spoke about the judiciary in the
context of a number of recent cases. She was
particularly concerned by the findings of Shri
D.P. Wadhwa who was conducting an inquiry into
the Graham Staines murder case for exonerating
the Bajrang Dal, to which the accused Dara Singh
had belonged. The trial Court too, while
sentencing Dara Singh exonerated the Bajrang Dal.
In this way the ideology of hatred and violence
is removed from judicial scrutiny and the
individual is treated as an isolated criminal.
Ms. Grover saw the ills of the judicial system in
a democracy as remediable not through a reform of
the law but through political activity and
emphasised upon the need to see the relationship
between the judicial system and a vibrant
democratic politics practised outside the courts.
The last speaker Mr. John Sundar, a
government employee in Tamilnadu outlined the
case of striking government employees in
Tamilnadu who were dismissed by Ms. Jayalalitha.
He too bemoaned the derailment of judicial
activism as the judiciary today has distanced
itself from providing a forum for the redressal
of the common people and is available only to the
powerful sections of our society.
A lively discussion followed on the range of
issues taken up by the panellists and the links
between a responsive judiciary and a vibrant
democratic polity were re-emphasised by members
of the audience. To sum up, there is a need for
redefining democracy as not a mere conduct of
elections, but as upholding the rights of all
citizens who are currently being cruelly
dispossessed of the constitutional guarantees for
them.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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