SACW | 1 May, 2004

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |   1 May, 2004
via:  www.sacw.net

Please Note: SACW dispatches are expected to fully resume by May 4,
2004


[1] Pakistan Thoughts on National Security Council (M B Naqvi)
[2] Pakistan: These 'codes of honour' (Anwar Syed)
[3] India: In objecting to 'Meenaxi', the Islamists have denied
Husain interpretive latitude (Mir Ali Raza)
[4] India : Teaching to Hate - RSS' Pedagogical Programme (Nandini
Sundar)
[5] India: UK riot victims seek Rs 22 cr damages from Modi
[6] India: Gujarat Jan Andolan rally on May 1
[7] India: The Rediff Interview with Teesta Setalvad
[8] India: Prehistory of Hindutva (Ramachandra Guha)

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


[1]

The News International [Pakistan]
April 28, 2004

Thoughts on NSC

[by] M B Naqvi

National Security Council (NSC) Bill will soon be an Act. It is a
controversial measure. Opposition has attacked it as something that
will permanently subjugate the political system to the armed forces;
it is seen as subversion of democracy. Few on the opposition side are
convinced that NSC of this kind was needed. Responding to the
President and his friends, they admit that on national security
matters an input from the armed forces may be desirable. But they
immediately supplement it with the observation that traditionally
under the Cabinet there is a Security Committee that invites on all
suitable occasions the heads of the armed forces to benefit from
their assessments. Nothing more is needed.
The President firmly believes that the NSC is necessary in order to
prevent the armed forces from taking over the government again; that
this is a better way to promote democracy by providing for a suitable
forum where the armed forces can give their reading of situations. A
majority of the national Parliament today supports the President.
Successful enactment of the NSC proves it. The majority perceives
itself to be in power and seems to think like President Pervez
Musharraf: they hope, the kind of NSC being set up would strengthen
their rule and the democracy they are running.
It sounds strange. One opposition argument makes clear sense: no
democratic government would be so foolish as not to consult senior
generals over some security matters. Why is then an elaborate NSC
being formed, the membership of which looks exceedingly like an
alternative Cabinet. Gen Ziaul Haq thought, and President Musharraf
concurs, the best way to keep the generals away from taking over the
government is to give them a constitutional role. Which is what Gen
Musharraf originally wanted and has settled for the present structure
as a matter of political concession to civilians. Generals in power
have believed that a constitutional role that elevates the forces'
opinion to an equal status with, if not to supercede the Federal
Cabinet's view, is best. Though most generals concede that right to
rule belongs to the people's representatives, but somehow find it
necessary to raise the importance of forces' opinion vis-a-vis the
Federal Cabinet. This mentality actually regards the forces superior
to nominal governments.
One point is clear: NSC is not merely an advisory body. Its article
three reads: "There shall be established a National Security Council
to serve as a forum for consultation (emphasis added) on matter of
national security including the sovereignty, integrity, defence,
security of the state and crisis management ...". Its uniformed
members are there not simply to give advice but to be consulted. All
civilian members have other recognised constitutional forums to
discuss and decide all these matters. But before decision, they will
now have to consult the generals. Let us take a concrete example:
Mumtaz Bhutto has opined that it is appropriate for Sindh,
Baluchistan and Frontier to secede from Pakistan. Now the President,
PM, Leader of Opposition, heads of the two Houses and provincial CMs
have their own Cabinets, the two Houses, four sets of Assemblies to
discuss and decide on this subject. At what stage will the cited
subject be brought to the NSC, for it falls within the scope of the
bill? There is no point in bringing it before NSC, after a decision
had been taken by Sindh or Federal Cabinet. But if it is taken up by
NSC before a decision made, it becomes the real decision making body,
superceding the Assemblies and Cabinets. If NSC "consultation" is
necessary, a few conclusions follow.
NSC also becomes an overriding body by virtue of five generals'
presence. The numerical strength of civilians becomes a meaningless
detail. These civilians had constitutional prerogatives and forums to
discuss and decide. If they have to come and consult five service
chiefs, all their constitutional powers and privileges go for naught.
The five generals become the overriding authority over all those
civilians in the NSC. Even otherwise, membership of the NSC makes
generals equal to the PM who will be like them an ordinary member.
Indeed, NSC renders all Cabinets redundant.
One wishes to hang on to the theoretical position of successive Army
Chiefs that armed forces ought not to interfere in the running of the
country; that should be left to the representative government. It is
their starting point, to reassure the civilians. But, immediately
from here they jump to the proposition that generals take over
because the civilians tend to make a mess of things. Let's see what
is implied: the civilian politicians are necessarily corrupt, inept
and generally inefficient, if not ignorant. This is balderdash. The
generals have ruled this country over extended periods. Each left the
country in worse conditions than he found it. Details are known: Each
was motivated by lust for power and was a bumbler of distinction.
Take Ayub Khan; he laid the groundwork for East Pakistan Crisis and
created a bogus democracy that survived not a day after him. Take
Yahya Khan. He presided over the dismemberment of the country but
still planned to rule indefinitely. The whole country is living
through the sad legacy of that Soldier of Islam, Gen Ziaul Haq; what
Pakistan Army encountered in its Wana Operation was his legacy of
modern arms in civilian hands.
Anyway, what is meant by constitutional role of generals? For, it is
a quest for this that has led to this enactment. One way or another,
Turkey's example is brought in. Turkey's does not apply. The Turkish
state was the construct of the so-called Young Turks (Army); the
whole state bears their impramateur. Turkish generals are the
creators of what democracy there is; and the stability of Turkish
democracy is controversial for Europeans.
A statement can safely be made: Pakistan probably needs an NSC like
the one in the US or India. Make it as elaborate and efficient as you
can. But do not make four, indeed five, generals co-equal with
members of the Cabinet. Let it be an advisory body to the Cabinet.
The generals have no business to discuss everything under the sun.
They must concentrate only at military defence matters; the larger
range of national security does not concern them except insofar as
they ought to be knowledgeable about the non-military aspects of
national security. Let them labour and produce competent assessments
of military and quasi-military situations. But the realm of higher
national security matters is not theirs. They are required to deal
with the military defence of the country, nothing more.
If the National Assembly thinks fit to have an elaborate NSC,
envisaged in the new Bill/Act, it would be better advised to amend
the Constitution and assign all functions of governance to this NSC.
Let it replace the Federal Cabinet, if the association of the
generals is really necessary. That would be appropriate for those who
believe that the generals must be associated with the running of the
country. It will probably be, in a narrow sense, a more efficient
Cabinet than the one Pakistan has today. At any rate, it will be
closer to facts of power.
Moreover, what was the utility of giving a constitutional or
political role, as in this NSC Bill/Act, to the generals that Zia,
Jehangir Karamat and Musharraf wanted? None of these worthies, except
Karamat, cared two hoots for democracy that came to power by
overthrowing it. While Karamat simply wanted to be on the high table,
the motive of others was to preserve their own power by keeping other
senior generals closely
associated - to prevent them dreaming dreams. Remember Ayub Khan,
Yahya Khan or maybe even Zia; each had to go when other generals
thought his time was up, NSC or no NSC.



------


[2]

Dawn [Pakistan]
April 25, 2004


These 'codes of honour'

By Anwar Syed

Having explored notions of honour in general terms last Sunday, we
now begin with the finding that there is no single, identifiable
Pakistani code of honour, conceived as a set of values and attitudes
distinct from the nation's professed moral code.

What about the provinces? No amount of recall enables me to say that,
beyond conduct related to male and female sexuality, Punjabis have a
code of honour. I would not be surprised if it transpired that the
same held for the Sindhis and Balochs. Let me hasten to add that this
is not a lack for which the people concerned have to be regretful or
apologetic.

It so happens, however, that the Pakhtuns in the tribal belt of the
NWFP do have such a code, known as Pakhtunwali. At the level of
profession, Pakhtun morality is essentially the same as it is
elsewhere in the country. In actual practice, several acts that the
preacher may consider wicked and sinful are taken in stride. There
is, for instance, nothing wrong with killing the violator of one's
person, name, shame, or property.

T.L. Pennell, a Christian missionary physician, who once worked in
Bannu, found that the Pakhtun regarded robbery as "more or less
praiseworthy, according to the skill and daring shown in its
perpetration, and to the success in the subsequent evasion of
pursuit." He was also given to bluffing which made him appear more
formidable than he might actually be. A bit of cheating in business
transactions, false accusations of crime against an adversary, false
testimony in court or before the jirga were, and probably still are,
acceptable in Pakhtun culture (as they are in others).

Let us now consider Pakhtunwali. It seems to consist of four
elements, the foremost of them being "badal" or revenge. The
obligation to take revenge falls not only upon the man who has been
wronged but also on his family or tribe. The resulting feud may go on
for generations. The wrong to be avenged may be real or fancied.
Perceived wrongs relate more often to transgressions against one's
person, standing, money, land and women.

The idea of revenge is taken by Pakhtun women as seriously as by men.
Consider the following account provided by Mr Pennell: A man was once
murdered in Bannu. Witnesses to the crime, fearing the wealth and
power of the killer's family, would not testify against him, and the
judge had to acquit him. The victim's sister, present in the court,
wailed: "Am I to have no justice from the Sarkar?" "Bring me
witnesses and I will convict," said the judge. "Very well, I must
find my own way," answered the sister and left. A few days later she
confronted her brother's killer in the local bazaar and shot him
dead.

Closely related to "badal" is "nanawati". When a man wishes to end a
feud because he sees only his utter ruin in its continuance, he may
go to his adversary's home, with his women unveiled and carrying the
Quran on their heads, bearing gifts (usually two sheep or goat),
throw himself at the latter's mercy and ask for peace. In this
circumstance the stronger party is expected to call off the feud.
Note that "nanawati" is ultimate humiliation and resort to it is not
made often.

The next commandment in Pakhtunwali is "melmastia," meaning the
obligation to extend hospitality (food and shelter) to those who have
come to one's door and request it (including possibly even an enemy).
The scale of hospitality will depend upon the host's circumstances
and the guest's station. A poor Pakhtun may offer only bread and tea.
A prosperous man will kill a chicken or, if the guest is a dignitary,
a sheep and provide a lavish feast. In any case, the host, even if a
malik or a khan, will sit with the guest and dish out the meat to him
with his own hands.

As a corollary of "melmastia," the Pakhtun admit to the obligation of
granting refuge and protection to those who seek it, often those on
the run to evade law-enforcement agencies. Protecting the man, who
has been given sanctuary, from his pursuers is a matter of high
honour, which may be the reason why our government forces are having
such difficulty in getting hold of the Al Qaeda and Taliban guys
hiding in South Waziristan.

The obligation to protect and preserve the honour of one's women is
an essential part of the Pakhtun code. Many of the murders committed
in the NWFP, as in the other provinces, are instigated by allegations
of unchaste conduct on the part of women.

Pakhtunwali may represent the Pakhtun's distinguishing commitments,
but there is nothing here that outsiders will rush to embrace.
Killing as a way of avenging an insult or an injury is a medieval
custom. Modern men sue the aggressor in a court of law. Imposition of
extreme humiliation upon a defeated and exhausted adversary before
agreeing to let go of him is not a particularly praiseworthy
practice. Hospitality within one's means is a fine idea, but it
should be noted that both hospitality and grant of sanctuary are
intended to maintain the host's prestige; they are not simply acts of
kindness.

In cases of sexual waywardness, the Pakhtun code of honour entitles a
man to kill both parties to the illicit affair. This is "honour
killing." An agency at the United Nations has received reports of
such killings from some 20 countries, but the larger number of them
comes from Brazil, Jordan, Pakistan, and Yemen. In Pakistan, several
hundred women are killed each year for honour-related reasons. The
penalty is not limited to adulteresses; it may befall women who seek
divorce, and those who have merely chatted with a stranger.

The law disapproves of honour killings in most of the countries where
they are common. But in some of them the same law makes allowances
for "grave provocation" as an extenuating circumstance that allows
acquittal or a reduced sentence. The police and judges are inclined
to take a lenient view of the offence. In a recent case the Supreme
Court of Brazil dismissed the plea of extenuating circumstance as
being irrelevant. But the lower courts in that country have continued
to acquit men accused of killing women for alleged loss of honour.

In 1998, a sessions court in Punjab sentenced two men to life
imprisonment because they had killed their sister for having married
a man of her choice. On appeal the Lahore High Court reduced their
sentence to 18 months (already served), saying that "in our society
nobody forgives a sister or daughter who marries without the consent
of her parents or near relatives."

In April 2000, General Musharraf unequivocally denounced honour
killings, saying that they had "no place in our religion or law."
Yet, he has done nothing to stop them. Parliament, on its part, has
passed no bill that would treat honour killing as plain murder. Even
a resolution that did no more than condemn the practice failed in the
Senate.

A few months ago, a minister in the Sindh government defended it as
part of a venerable tribal tradition. In a weird, possibly sarcastic,
statement Mumtaz Bhutto has argued that if, in a country where truth,
honesty, faithfulness, and hard work are lacking, a man must die
because he acts to preserve his honour and self-respect, nothing
is "left for him to live for."

Before going further, we should pause to note that honour killing is
not practiced uniformly in all sections of society. It happens more
often in rural than in urban areas. Second, it is less common in
educated and modernized, affluent urban classes than in the lower
middle class. Young men and women in cities go to college and
university together, meet outside the classroom, have tea, and talk.
Their parents don't breathe down their necks. Some of these young
people become romantically involved with one another, and "love
marriages" are on the increase.

Note also that relatives of the man involved in an illicit
relationship, if he has escaped the wrath of the woman's family, will
not normally cast him away. "Boys will be boys," they are likely to
say, and they will do what they can to defend and protect him.

That honour killings are an abomination goes without saying. We must
ask why the practice exists. To begin with, the idea of honour was
rooted in a man's ability to maintain his possessions against an
outsider's trespasses or violations. Somewhere during the evolution
of cultures, woman began to be seen and treated as man's possession.
His property right resided in her body.

She could hire herself out as a nurse to another man's children
without prejudice to her "owner's" property right. But she would
damage herself as an object, lose her value, and thus inflict a loss
upon her keeper (father or husband) if she developed illicit
relations with this other man. If she had lost her value, she was not
worth keeping any more, and she might as well lose her life.

The way to stop honour killing does not go through courts of law.
Shaheen Sardar Ali, chairperson of the National Commission on the
Status of Women, stated in January 2001 that the practice would not
go away until men stopped thinking of women as their property. As
Pakistani women become more educated and economically self-
sufficient, they will repudiate the notion of any man's property
right in their persons. Their drive has some considerable distance to
go. The persistence of honour killing is a part of the ongoing
contest between mediaevalism and modernity in Pakistan.

The authors of our concepts of honour could have included commitment
to patriotism, duty, probity, sanctity of covenants, and defence of
the downtrodden in their concerns. What a pity that they got so
consumed by the subject of woman's chastity that they could go no
further.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US.


-----



[3]


Outlook Magazine [India]
May 03, 2004

Light Unto Darkness
In objecting to 'Meenaxi', the Islamists have denied Husain
interpretive latitude

by Mir Ali Raza

I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart, and I said: "Who are
You?" He said: "You."
-Mansur al Hallaj

In 922 AD, Sufi saint Mansur al Hallaj was sentenced to a gruesome
death by Abbasid emperor Muqtadir for the sin of apostasy. The
Baghdad clergy had found his pronouncement of An-al Haqq (I am the
Truth) a sign of the ultimate denial of God. Hallaj's statement was
nothing more than an assertion that God resided within every
creation, but this metaphysical interpretation cut as much ice with
the Muslim particularists of 10th century Baghdad as a pluralistic
reading of an Islamic text would with the current Unitarian
Islamists, be they Afghani Taliban, Saudi Wahabis or homegrown
apostasy-police such as the All India Ulema Council.

Thus, the Ulema Council and their cohorts pitched their assault
against M.F. Husain, accusing him of using a Quranic verse to "depict
the physical beauty of the heroine" in his movie Meenaxi. The factual
baselessness of this accusation apart, it is perhaps fitting

that the objection of the Islamists to Husain's creative expression
involved his deployment of the term nur-un-ala-nur (literally, "light
upon light"). This phrase comes from the famous 'Light Verse' in the
Quran, which invokes an ineffable mysticism:

"Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of
His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass.
The glass is as it were a shining star. This lamp is kindled from a
blessed Tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil
would almost glow forth of itself though no fire touched it. Light
upon Light. Allah guides unto His light whom He will. And Allah
speaks to mankind in allegories, for Allah is knower of all things."
(An Nur, 24:35).

Like much of the Quran, and perhaps more so, this verse does not lend
itself to a literalist reading. Thus, the Ulema Council's contention
that the term "Light upon Light" has been "used to define the persona
of the Prophet" is an interpretive act. Evidently they have no desire
to allow Husain any similar interpretive latitude. He must be
punished for the sin of interpretation. Alas, they do not have the
power to censure him according to the precedent set a thousand years
ago against Hallaj. One must make do with more circumscribed
punishments. Such as the withdrawal of the movie from theatres. An
occasional epiphany like the Rushdie fatwa apart, the victories of
Islamists against South Asian apostates have been nothing but
ineffectual symbolic acts, aimed more often than not at their own
community, like the recent excommunication of 54 Muslims in Agra for
their views on Vande Mataram (and consequently, rendering their
marriages invalid!). Their interventions in the Indian cultural
sphere have always carried an element of the comic, such as the
insistence that the title of the 1997 movie Mustafa be changed to
Ghulam-e-Mustafa, or that the words of a song from the 1994 film
Aatish be changed. No doubt, they take their cues from their
counterparts on the Hindutva side, such as Bal Thackeray's menacing
insistence upon "editing" Mani Ratnam's Bombay in 1995, or the
blocked shooting of Deepa Mehta's film Water by the Bajrang Dal in
2000.

So eventually Husain withdrew his film from the market, just as he
had withdrawn his Saraswati painting when it was subjected to the ire
of Shiv Sena activists. Of course, his decision immediately gave
cause for concern that his position would give an opportunity to
Hindutva ideologues to further alienate the Muslims from the
mainstream. Why did he "appease" the Muslim ulema for Meenaxi when he
was a bit more defiant in the case of the Shiv Sainiks ransacking his
exhibition? One easy answer is that he did not want to go through the
same level of distress again, which is perfectly understandable at
the personal level.However, he should also be aware of the larger
ramifications of his decision. From now on, there is no doubt that
Husain, and perhaps the Muslim artist in general, will have a tougher
time negotiating the tightened boundaries between the secular and the
profane worlds.

One must also wonder whether this act of the Ulema Council,
representing as it does an increasing insularity, is not related to
an emerging siege mentality within the Muslim community. After all,
it's now becoming fashionable in the Indian mainstream to express
impatience with the minority community, with a tradition of
secularism increasingly viewed as appeasement. How can the Muslim
community craft a communitarian response to a charged social
situation where every action can have a reaction that is opposite but
hugely unequal? The response within the community has been
multifaceted. If the intransigence of the Ulema Council represents
one end of the continuum, the other end constitutes a poignant
capitulation, represented in acts such as Zaheer Khan's endorsement
of Bal Thackeray or Rafiq Zakaria's suggestion that Muslims support
the BJP, as a way to avoid future isolation. The challenge for the
community lies in choosing a path that avoids these extremes, and
includes both a principled opposition to the forces of communalism, a
commitment to internal dialogue and a pluralistic interpretation of
the faith and its practice.


(The author helps edit samar, the South Asian Magazine for Action and
Reflection.)



-----


[4]

Economic and Political Weekly [India]
April 17, 2004

Teaching to Hate
RSS' Pedagogical Programme

The RSS/BJP has attempted to effect a radical departure in the
existing educational ethos through the use of both state power and
the instruments of 'civil society'. This article looks at schooling
as part of the RSS agenda to create certain notions of citizenship
and identity, first examining the textbook debate and then through
ethnographic fieldwork in RSS schools in Chhattisgarh.

by Nandini Sundar

[Full Text is available at:
http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?
root=2004&leaf=04&filename=7070&filetype=html ]



-----


[5]


The Times of India
APRIL 30, 2004

UK riot victims seek Rs 22 cr damages from Modi
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

AHMEDABAD:Three civil suits, seeking damages mounting to over Rs 22
crore, were filed at a Himmatnagar court on Friday by kin of two
British citizens and another survivor of an incident that took place
while they were returning to Ahmedabad from Jaipur on February 28,
2002.

The suits pertain to an incident that took place at Prantij on the
Ahmedabad-Himmatnagar highway when a mob torched a Tata Sumo in which
the two British-Indian Muslims - Shahid Siddique Dawood and Shakil
Abdul Dawood - were travelling.

Shahid and Shakil died in the attack while Shahid's nephew Imran
Mohammad was injured but somehow managed to escape. It may be
mentioned that the then British consul general Ian Reeds also visited
the site on March 8, 2002, on learning about the gruesome incident.

The mob had asked the Britons to identify themselves. Eye-witnesses
said they were killed despite identifying themselves as British
nationals. On Friday, Dawoods' wives Shirin and Shamima, along with
Imran, filed three civil suits at the civil court in Himmatnagar
seeking damages worth Rs 9.75 crore, Rs 8.62 crore and Rs 4 crore,
respectively.

The applicants have named Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the then home
minister Gordhan Zadaphia, then DGP K Chakravarthi, and then home
secretary Ashok Narain along with 10 others as respondents


-----


[6]

The Times of India
APRIL 30, 2004

Gujarat Jan Andolan rally on May 1
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat Jan Andolan (GJA), an association of trade
unions and NGOs, will organise a seminar-cum-rally 'Shrinking
Democracy' on May 1 to address the issue of 'attack on democratic
rights of all sections of the society.'
Speakers, including Girish Patel, Suguna Pathi, Indubhai Jani, Mukul
Sinha and Colin Gonsalves, will discuss problems arising out of
globalisation and communalism. Issues relating to 'violation of
rights of women, Dalits, Adivasis and working class in today's
increasingly suppressive political scenario' will also be discussed.
The rally starting from Tagore Hall will pass through Paldi
crossroads and Nehru crossroads before ending at Sardar Baug. Aman
Samudaya , Jan Sangharsh Manch and Janpath are some of the
organisations forming part of the GJA. "We are growing by the day.
Our aim is to make people come out and fight for their rights. We
will support them in every which way possible," says Zakia Jowhar of
Aman Samudaya.


-----


[7]

rediff.com [India]
April 15, 2004

The Rediff Interview/Teesta Setalvad

"Does the constitution not apply to Gujarat"

[Available at: http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/apr/15inter.htm ]


-----


[8]

The Telegraph [India]
April 17, 2004

PREHISTORY OF HINDUTVA
The space for each Hindu to decide what Hinduism is must remain

by Ramachandra Guha

In June 2002, just as the riots in Narendra Modi's home state had
finally run their course, I was visited in Bangalore by G.N. (Ganesh)
Devy, a sterling representative of another and better Gujarat. Devy
was for many years a professor of literature at M.S. University in
Baroda, and won a Sahitya Akademi award for his works of criticism.
But when his career was at its height he chucked it up to become a
social worker. His inspiration was a Bengali matriarch named
Mahasveta Devi, who had once been a teacher of literature herself.
Like Mahasveta, Ganesh Devy became a champion of that most oppressed
and least understood segment of Indian society, the adivasis. For the
past decade, Devy has worked tirelessly at recovering and celebrating
adivasi art, culture and language. In a more practical vein, he has
sought also to intervene on their behalf with the state, to seek
justice for nomads unfairly stigmatized as "criminals" and for slum-
dwellers thrown out of their homes.

I have known and admired Devy for a long time. When he came to see me
in June 2002, he asked to be taken to the home of another admirer of
his. This was M.N. Venkatachaliah, the former chief justice of India.
Venkatachaliah had just then submitted the report of a constitutional
review committee of which he was the chairman. Those who appointed
him to this job knew him to be a devout Hindu. But perhaps they did
not realize that he was also a man of independence and integrity.
Thus the report he finally turned in recommended the retention of the
basic structure of the Indian Constitution, rather than its radical
overhaul, as the ruling coalition had probably hoped for. And, unlike
most other such appointees, he quit his government bungalow in Delhi
the day he demitted office.

After leaving Delhi, Venkatachaliah returned to his ancestral home in
the old Bangalore locality of Basavangudi. It was there that, with me
as a silent witness, Devy told the jurist of the happenings in
Gujarat. Beginning with the burning of the Sabarmati Express in
Godhra, he then narrated the incidents by which that act was avenged.
He spoke of the torching of homes in Vadodara, the killings of women
and children in Ahmedabad, and the attacks on the shops owned by
Muslims in the interior. At first Venkatachaliah listened quietly,
but then he broke out, in anguish: "No, no, Devy! That is not
Hinduism!" It was not the jurist's Hinduism, certainly, nor Devy's,
nor (I hope) mine. But, as the social activist reminded the judge,
those avengers of the Godhra outrage certainly saw themselves as
Hindus, acting on behalf of what they understood to be Hinduism.

The judge and I were deeply moved by Devy's account, although, unlike
him, we were experiencing the pain and the shame only at secondhand.
His own feelings ran far deeper still. As we were leaving, Devy told
Venkatachaliah to use whatever influence he still had in Delhi to ask
for a CBI enquiry. As he put it, in a flash of bitter and evocative
sarcasm, "Sir, we need to know from the CBI - was Gandhi really born
in Gujarat?"

I was reminded of that conversation when reading Jyotirmaya Sharma's
recent book, Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism. This
presents a prehistory of the most influential political movement of
contemporary India. It does so through a careful examination of the
ideas of four patriotic Indians: Dayananda Saraswati, Aurobindo
Ghose, Vivekananda and V.D. Savarkar.

In Sharma's view, what binds this quarter of thinkers is
their "systematic marshalling of a Hindu identity in the service of
Indian nationalism". He identifies some crucial, one might say
foundational, ideas common to all four. Thus there is a common
privileging of the Vedas as constituting the authentic texts of
Hinduism, to be upheld over and against locally valorized myths and
legends. There is a common desire to build a unity among
the "original inhabitants" of Aryavarta, in an assertion of a race-
based nationalism that bears a marked similarity to German ideas of
the "volk". There is the downgrading of the feminine, and a
corresponding glorification of the masculine, and of violence, seen
as necessary to overcome the temptations of competing faiths. There
is the pervasive suspicion of the outsider, this combined with a
penchant for conspiracy theories in which Hindus are the victims of
the scheming foreigner. There is a partiality for abuse and
invective, to be expected in a totalizing ideology in which, as
Sharma points out, "there was little scope for moderation or
compromise".

An excavation of the intellectual genealogy of Hindutva is long
overdue. What makes Sharma's book especially notable is that he is no
Marxist secularist, but a Hindu steeped in his own cultural and
religious tradition. A scholar of Sanskrit, he is as comfortable in
Gujarati and Hindi as in the language of Mill and Macaulay. But he is
also a trained political philosopher, trained to examine and analyse
the genesis of political ideas and their consequences. Fortunately -
since political philosophy can at times be a science even more dismal
than economics - he also has a gift for communicating complex ideas
in lucid prose.

The book starts with Dayananda Saraswati, a thinker who was
singularly devoid of doubt and irony. His "philosophy left little
room for conversation". He opposed idol worship, but his own god -
abstract, formless, yet all-knowing - seems disconcertingly like
Allah. We move on to Aurobindo, who, again, at times propagated ideas
uncannily similar to Islam, as in the wish to return to a Golden Age
where all was truth and righteousness. Then we come to Vivekananda,
to this writer the most ambivalent, and hence most appealing, of the
four. On the one side is his celebration of masculinity: Sharma
quotes a passage in which the Swami is dismissive of Chaitanya for
promoting a form of Krishna worship through which "the whole nation
has become effeminate - a race of women!" On the other side is his
keen interest in other faiths. While holding Hinduism to be
the "mother" of religions, Vivekananda can yet spot qualities to
admire and honour in Christ, the Buddha, and in Mohammad too.

The book ends with V.D. Savarkar, who actually coined the
term "Hindutva", and who was unquestionably the most hard-headed of
the quartet. The rhetoric of revenge and retribution is palpable in
his work. Savarkar hated Islam, if only to emulate it. He wished to
put Muslims in their place - to make them, as he said, "behave as
good boys". That indeed is how minorities were treated by Islamic
states: allowed to exist if they were subdued and deferential, but
crushed if they spoke up for their rights. Interestingly, of the
thinkers profiled here, Savarkar was the most opposed to the
divisions of caste. For he sought to build a unified "qaum", or
community, of believers, thus to more effectively take on the qaum of
Islam.

I think this book would have been complete if it had ended with a
chapter on the life and work of the long-serving head of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, M.S. Golwalkar. Sharma sees Golwalkar as
merely an "intelligent pamphleteer". Certainly his ideas were not as
original or interesting as Dayananda's or Savarkar's, but they were
greatly more influential. Golwalkar was to that duo what Stalin was
to Marx and Lenin: the vulgarizer, but also the great popularizer, of
the faith. Mao and Ho Chi Minh and our own E.M. S. Namboodiripad
learnt the catechism of communism from the summaries provided by
Stalin. Likewise, the men who now rule India learnt how to hate and
revile the "Other" from the speeches delivered by Golwalkar.

The anthropologist Verrier Elwin once called the Baptists the "RSS of
Christianity". The sangh parivar has done to Hinduism what the
evangelicals have done to Christianity - reduce an alive, supple
faith to a set of absolutist dogmas. Indeed, the damage in this case
is even greater. For Hinduism has always been the most decentralized
of religions - with no church, no holy book, no central committee, in
a word, no authorized interpreters. It is this autonomy that the
Hindutva movement seeks to destroy. It is for us to ensure that they
do not succeed. For, as Jyotirmaya Sharma observes, "Every Hindu
decides what is Hinduism. That space ought to remain inviolable. It
is a space worth living and dying for."


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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
The complete SACW archive is available at:
bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

See also associated sites:
South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org

South Asia Counter Information Project (a sister
initiative of SACW and SAAN): snipurl.com/sacip

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do
not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.




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