SACW | 24 Sep 2004
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Thu Sep 23 19:45:41 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 24 September, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
=======
[1] Pakistan: An interview with B.M. Kutty
[2] India-Gujarat: "Discouraging Dissent:
Intimidation, Harassment of Witnesses, Rights
activists" (HRW press release re new report)
[3] "If tomorrow all Muslim women don the jilbab
and men grow beards, will the condition of
Muslims improve?" (Ghayasuddin Siddiqui)
[4] India: The women of the Sangh (Jyotirmaya Sharma)
[5] Book Review: Exploding Myths on Conversions (Anshu Malhotra)
[6] Upcoming event: Sumit Sarkar lectures in montreal (October 6 and 7)
--------------
[1]
The Times of India > Interview
September 22, 2004
ACROSS BORDERS
Biyathul Mohiyuddin Kutty is a bridge between
India and Pakistan. A founder member of the
Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and
Democracy, 74-year-old Kutty is currently joint
director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour
Education and Research, a trade union body. He
speaks to M P K Kutty about politics in Pakistan.
A Malayali in Lahore: What made you stay on in Pakistan?
Normally, I should have stayed on in Karachi,
which had a sizable number of Malayalis who had
migrated in the 1920s during and after the Moplah
rebellion and were running roadside teashops
among other businesses. But the spirit of
inquiry, rather than adventure, took me to
Lahore. In Lahore, I came in touch with some very
interesting Left intellectuals. They convinced me
that I belong not only to Kerala but also to
Lahore, and as days went by, to Pakistan. About a
year later, I got married.
You even found the space to work as a political
activist. How did you manage to win the
confidence and trust of the people there?
The people I came across, my office colleagues
and others, were extremely nice to me. My broken
Urdu and relatively fluent English proved to be
the plus points. Lahoris liked me for that. In
fact, they owned me up as one of their own. And
after my marriage, I became an integral part of
the local community. I faced no hostility from
anyone. This friendly environment and the
interaction with progressive political elements,
besides being married into an Urdu-speaking
family (migrants from Uttar Pradesh) helped me to
learn Urdu rather fast and facilitated the
process of integration. The hostility I
experienced came only from the intelligence
agencies. I spent nearly three years in jail when
General Ayub Khan imposed martial law in 1959 for
my Left leanings.
You have been part of the trade union movement in
Pakistan. But our impression is there is no place
for such politics in Pakistan.
It is only partially true. Yes. During military
dictatorships, or for that matter any kind of
dictatorships, not just workers but people as a
whole are generally denied political rights. But,
with varying degrees of intensity, there have
always been strong popular resistance to
dictatorships. Of course, conditions had never
been propitious for trade unions to flourish,
even during non-military regimes. All the same,
the trade union movement has fought for the
rights of workers. A decade ago, eight major
central trade union federations of the country,
setting aside their political and international
affiliations, united to form the Pakistan
Workers' Confederation (PWC). The PWC is today an
effective platform of the organised workers of
Pakistan.
The rest of the world looks at Pakistan as a land
of moulvis , religious fanatics and terrorists.
Do you agree with this picture?
I beg to disagree. Overwhelming majority of
Pakistanis is tolerant and friendly. Yes. Most of
them are practising Muslims, but not at all
fanatics. Violent extremism in the name of Islam
appeared in the 1980s in Pakistan with the active
support of funds, arms and training in terrorism
from American intelligence agencies and their
European allies and reactionary Arab rulers, in
their war against the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan. General Zia-ul Haq's unique brand of
Islamic military dictatorship was the willing
vehicle the Americans used to get to their goal
and in the process they produced the most
virulent form of religious extremism in the
region. But believe me, this extremism is
confined to small groups, trained and financed
during the Afghan war and now let loose to seek
new killing fields all over South Asia and
beyond. Ninety-five per cent of Pakistani Muslims
have nothing to do with terrorism of any kind.
Many of them may be sporting beards but are no
moulvis .
What about the influence of religion in politics?
Barring a freak victory in one province - North
West Frontier Province - in the last elections,
all the religio-political parties together could
never win more than 2 to 3 per cent votes in any
general election. The fact is that the people in
NWFP were directly affected by US bombings and
killings of their kinsmen in neighbouring
Afghanistan. This public resentment was used by
the MMA alliance to manipulate votes in their
favour, in the absence of the traditional
anti-imperialist platform of the Left. People
voted against America but not for the MMA.
What can be done to remove anti-Pak prejudices
among Indians and anti-India prejudices among
Pakistanis?
Anti-Pakistan prejudices in India and anti-India
prejudices in Pakistan are 57 years old. The
people of our countries cannot be blamed for it.
The ruling establishments in both countries have
pursued mutually hostile policies that bred and
nourished such prejudices. Free interaction at
people-to-people level is the only way to remove
such prejudices. The two governments should
immediately lift all undue restrictions on travel
and exchange of information, newspapers, books,
TV channels and so on between the two countries.
You must listen to what Indians visiting Pakistan
and Pakistanis visiting India have to say about
how their biased views changed after seeing
things with their own eyes.
______
[2]
Human Rights Watch - Press Release
INDIA: AFTER GUJARAT RIOTS, WITNESSES FACE INTIMIDATION
State Government Fails to Provide Protection; Time for New Delhi to Step In
(Bombay, September 24, 2004) -- As the courts
hear cases stemming from the anti-Muslim riots of
March 2002, the authorities in Gujarat are
intimidating rather than protecting witnesses who
seek to bring the perpetrators of the violence to
justice, Human Rights Watch said in a new report
released today. The central government in New
Delhi must take immediate steps to ensure the
protection of the victims and witnesses of the
riots and their advocates.
The 30-page report, Discouraging Dissent:
Intimidation and Harassment of Witnesses, Human
Rights Activists and Lawyers, documents how Hindu
extremists have threatened and intimidated
victims, witnesses and rights defenders who are
fighting for the prosecution of those responsible
for the killing and injury of Muslims during the
riots. Instead of pursuing the perpetrators of
violence, the state government?formed by the
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
under Chief Minister Narandra Modi?has nurtured a
climate of fear. Officials have targeted those
seeking justice with selective investigations by
state tax authorities or the police.
"Two years after the Gujarat riots, witnesses are
being threatened and sometimes even attacked,"
said Brad Adams, executive director of Human
Rights Watch's Asia Division. "Not only has the
Gujarat government failed to pursue those
responsible for the riots, it is obstructing
justice by its failure to protect witnesses."
The violence in 2002 started with an attack in
Godhra on a train carrying Hindus. Fifty-nine
people died when a train carriage caught fire. In
a retaliatory spree by Hindu mobs, hundreds of
Muslims were slaughtered, tens of thousands were
displaced, and their property was destroyed. Two
years later, Muslims still live in fear because
their attackers remain free and continue to make
threats, particularly against those involved in
prosecutions.
While investigations in the Godhra case proceeded
rapidly, with several indicted Muslims charged
under the recently repealed Prevention of
Terrorism Act (POTA), investigations into cases
related to the anti-Muslim riots that followed
were deliberately slow. The lower courts
dismissed many cases for lack of evidence after
public prosecutors effectively acted as defense
counsel or witnesses turned hostile after
receiving threats.
Human Rights Watch praised recent decisions of
the Indian Supreme Court to move some trials out
of Gujarat to allow for a more impartial
atmosphere and greater protection for witnesses,
victims and lawyers. State governments should
give adequate protection to witnesses and
victims, order the appointment of a new public
prosecutor, and order fresh police investigations
into the case, Human Rights Watch said.
The Supreme Court said that members of the
Gujarat state administration ?were looking
elsewhere when?innocent women and children were
burning, and were probably deliberating how the
perpetrators of the crime can be saved and
protected.? The Court rebuked both the Gujarat
High Court and the local justice system, stating,
?Judicial criminal administration system must be
kept clean and beyond the reach of whimsical
political wills or agendas.?
To address these problems, Human Rights Watch
urged the Indian government to set up a credible
witness-protection program and provide more aid
to the thousands of Muslims who are still living
in squatter camps since being displaced by the
riots.
?The behavior of authorities in Gujarat during
the riots and afterwards have given Muslims in
India good reason not to trust the police or
justice system,? said Adams. ?The new government
in New Delhi has a chance now to show that it is
serious about justice. It should instruct the
Central Bureau of Intelligence to take charge of
investigations, and it needs to provide
protection to people facing attacks and threats.?
In previous reports on the 2002 Gujarat riots,
Human Rights Watch has noted the failure of the
court system to prosecute even known abusers and
the authorities? lack of political will to
identify those who planned and executed the
attacks.
o o o o
The report "Discouraging Dissent: Intimidation and Harassment of
Witnesses, Human Rights Activists and Lawyers," is available at:
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/india/gujarat/
Complete Title and Contents:
DISCOURAGING DISSENT: Intimidation and Harassment
of Witnesses, Human Rights Activists, and Lawyers
Pursuing Accountability for the 2002 Communal
Violence in Gujarat
I. Summary
II. Background
III. Cases of Threats, Intimidation and
Harassment of Victims, Witnesses, and Activists
Official Harassment
1. Threats and harassment of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel
2. Police Inquiries and Interrogation of Mukhtar
Muhammed, Kasimabad Education and Development
Society
3. Police Enquiries and Interrogation of Father
Cedric Prakash, Director, Prashant, A Center for
Human Rights, Justice and Peace
4. Inquiries by the Charity Commissioner of
Ahmedabad against human rights activists
5. Harrassment of Mallika Sarabhai, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts
Anonymous and Individual Threats and Intimidation
1. Threats against activists and lawyers working on riot-related cases.
2. Threats against Trupti Shah and Rohit
Prajapati, activists with People's Union for
Civil Liberties-Shanti Abhiyan
3. Threats against Teesta Setalvad, Citizens for
Justice and Peace, and Father Cedric Prakash,
Director, Prashant, A Center for Human Rights,
Justice and Peace
4. Attack on volunteers of Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD)
5. Intimidation of Bilkis Yakub Rasool Patel and other witnesses
______
[3]
The Milli Gazette, 1-15 September 2004.
Only an internally generated intellectual
revolution would provide Muslims a place of
respect
ROAD TO MUSLIM DIGNITY
Ghayasuddin Siddiqui
Recently a friend's daughter was getting married,
and our family was invited to attend one of the
pre-nuptial ceremonies: the henna night, at which
the palm of bride-to-be is stained with henna
with much fanfare.
Whilst the men chatted in a separate room, the
women listened to a talk on the responsibilities
of women. They were told that heaven has seven
gates and those women who look after their
husbands properly would be entitled to enter
heaven through whichever gate they chose. Muslim
women are so used to listening to such garbage
that they simply laugh, ignore it and move on.
When my daughter-in-law related the story to me,
other episodes came to mind. An acquaintance of
mine when asked how his daughter was getting on
in her education responded by saying that she was
staying at home to give company to her mother.
When asked whether she were ill or disabled the
reply was: the Prophet's daughter did not go to
school. Then there was the recent telephone call
to our office was from an 18-year-old girl asking
for details of Muslim colleges as she has not
been allowed to attend school since she was 14.
During a debate on the subject of hijab organised
by the Oxford Student's Islamic Society a few
months ago I made the point that the Quran
stresses modesty of apparel for both men and
women. Surprisingly, the audience was reluctant
to accept this idea. More scary was the fact that
these young people of above-average intelligence
seemed more interested in securing a position in
the afterlife than in improving their own and
others' lot in this one.
A couple of weeks ago, following the High Court
judgement on the Luton jilbab controversy, I was
saddened to hear a number of Muslim girls say
they would sooner leave school than abandon
jilbab. Those who were supporting Shabina Begum's
case were looking not for reconciliation (the
Luton school allows for the religious and
cultural preferences of its pupils) but
confrontation in order to enhance their status
amongst the youth. In that they were guilty also
of double standards, for whilst opposing
democracy and human rights as non-Islamic they
wanted the school to accept Ms Begum's right to
chose her form of dress.
Many young people seem unaware that the headscarf
or hijab controversy only became an issue as a
result of the Iranian revolution, when Iranian
women had started to observe hijab as a protest
against the culture of nakedness promoted under
the Shah. Now by emphasising hijab as an
obligation, not a choice, a faction is making the
outward manifestation of dress, rather than
modesty in one's heart, the measure of
Muslimness. God says He knows what is in our
hearts and that is what matters. But the new
generation of Islamists are changing the goal
posts. By making hijab or jilbab a criterion of
Islamic identity our clerics are taking on the
role of God by laying claim to infallibility. If
Muslims are not careful they might find
themselves conniving at the introduction of a
moral police, which could entail rifts within the
community based on degrees of observance. In my
view, this shift of emphasis is a distraction
from the real challenges the Muslim world faces,
challenges we prefer not to confront because
that would require changing ourselves radically.
If tomorrow all Muslim women don the jilbab and
men grow beards, will the condition of Muslims
improve? More likely they will still be despised
and marginalised. Muslims must recognise that it
is their closed mind-set that has put them on the
slippery slope to insignificance. Sadly even the
pro-hijab conference recently held in London,
supported by Ken Livingstone, also miss the point.
Following the collapse of the Mughal Empire in
India in the 19th century there was an intense
debate over the causes of Muslim decline and
defeat. One view was that whilst we were sleeping
a new body of knowledge had emerged elsewhere
which now guided the destiny of mankind and
without excelling in it our future could not be
secured. An alternative hypothesis held that we
declined because we abandoned the 'pure' Islam
and to reacquire former glory we should shun
contact with the alien West and return to aslaf
(the practices of the forebears). Sadly, the
latter view prevailed and manifested itself in
the form of opposition to learning English. One
hundred fifty years later, the folly of this
attitude has been repeatedly demonstrated. Muslim
orthodoxy still believes this was the right
course but it denied Muslims any influence they
might have had in world affairs.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in
1979, Islamic movements and clerics were
manipulated by the CIA into allowing Islam to be
used to pursue an American agenda (remember
Reagan's alliance of 'God-fearing peoples'
against godless Communism!). This gave rise to
what is known as the Jihad in Afghanistan. Cold
War Warriors became Holy Warriors. Using Muslims
as cannon fodder, the CIA contrived to defeat the
Soviet Union. Suddenly, a bipolar world had
become unipolar. The subsequent developments made
it possible for the neo-cons to set in motion
their plan for domination of the world's
resources.
If reluctance to learn English put Muslims on the
road to intellectual irrelevance, the Afghan
Jihad made their societies promoters of a culture
of violence. We know that some of these Holy
Warriors were trained in Scotland by the British
Government during the Thatcher epoch. While
referring to the war on terror, Tony Blair
recently said he knew there were Jihadists living
in Britain. He was of course right because
Britain had been actively involved in the Afghan
Jihad from the very beginning. Now as the US
operation in Afghanistan falters, Britain is
again involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations
to find acceptable Taliban faces to incorporate
in the Karzai Government. To pursue this goal, in
March of this year, the spiritual father of the
Taliban was invited to London as the guest of the
Foreign Office. Governments never hesitate to use
simple-minded groups and individuals to further
their political ends. But an open debate within
the community on the Jihad in Afghanistan and its
unforeseen consequences might ensure that we
begin our next love affair with the Taliban with
our eyes open. The Islamists have destabilised
the world and Muslims aught to know it.
Muslims have to do a lot of soul searching. They
shall have to begin by challenging the forces of
obscurantism. They must recognise that these
forces have brought them nothing but defeat,
humiliation and misery. Unless they emerge as
champions of the empowerment of humankind, they
shall neither have nor merit any place of respect
in the world. The secular man who presently
dominates world affairs will accord them grudging
respect only if they beat him at his own game,
which is to say, becoming as creative as he is.
It is this change that can shift the balance of
power in their favour, bringing them the dignity
and acceptability they so desperately crave.
Muslims need an internally generated intellectual
revolution. Small pockets of intellectuals
already exist everywhere. What they need is a
voice and a forum for their growth and
recognition. This bridge-building may ensure that
there is enough pressure on the rulers in the
Muslim countries to grant basic freedoms to their
own people.
(Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui is leader of the Muslim
Parliament and the Director of The Muslim
Institute, London)
______
[4]
The Hindu - September 24, 2004
THE WOMEN OF THE SANGH
By Jyotirmaya Sharma
The Sangh relentlessly argues for the liberation,
enlightenment, education and employment of Muslim
women, something that it rejects in its notion of
the ideal Hindu woman.
IN THE past few weeks, two events in public life
have overshadowed everything else. One is the
spectacle of Uma Bharti, flag in hand, emerging
out of prison and setting out on her Tiranga
Yatra, and the other is the question of the
growth of the Muslim population in India. On the
face of it, these two seem unrelated. A closer
look, however, reveals a thread that runs through
both, and also a pattern. Both have something to
do with the Sangh Parivar's portrayal of women in
general, and Muslim women in particular.
When the Rashtra Sevika Samiti (henceforth,
Samiti) was founded in 1936 as the first
auxiliary organisation within the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (henceforth, Sangh), K.B.
Hedgewar confessed to its founder, Lakshmibai
Kelkar, that he knew nothing about women. By the
time the 1980 edition of M.S. Golwalkar's Bunch
of Thoughts was published, a chapter on ideal
motherhood in relation to nationalist sons was
added to the text.
These minor shifts of emphasis, along with an
excellent account of representation of women by
the Sangh and the Samiti, is to be found in Paula
Bacchetta's outstanding study of the
representation of women in the Sangh Parivar
titled, Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as
Ideologues (New Delhi: Women Unlimited). Ms.
Bacchetta identifies the Sangh's idea of women
manifest in the concept of motherhood and the
creation of the Bharatmata iconography and ideal.
She is perceived as a chaste mother, victimised
by Muslims and in constant need of protection by
her sons, who at once are virile, physically
strong, celibate, and fanatically Hindu
nationalist.
In sharp contrast, the Samiti does not divest
Bharatmata of all warrior qualities, but gives
her some of Durga's fierce qualities.
Simultaneously, it creates for itself the figure
of another goddess, the Ashtabhuja, the one with
eight arms, which hold a saffron flag, a lotus,
the Bhagvad Gita, a bell, fire, a sword and a
rosary. The eighth hand is held in a gesture of
blessing. Ms. Bacchetta argues that while the
Sangh works systematically to reinforce
masculinity, it does so at the cost of
diminishing the scope and symbolic potency of the
feminine.
Golwalkar's chapter, `Call to the Motherhood', in
his Bunch of Thoughts, implores Hindu women, who
without exception are ideal mothers, to teach
their sons the essentials of Hindu nationalism,
fight the Hindu nation's enemies, but most
significantly, desist from being `modern' (read
Westernised). Modern women, argues Golwalkar,
lack in virtue and think that `modernism lies in
exposing their body more and more to the public
gaze'.
During July-September 1969, the RSS journal,
Organiser, conducted a debate in its pages on
women and their role in public life. Ms.
Bacchetta sees the entire debate not merely as a
reaction to Indira Gandhi's rise to power, but
also as representing the Sangh's view that women
ought to remain in the background with occasional
forays into the public realm. The debate in the
Organiser endorses this view: whenever women have
been invested with absolute power, it argued,
they have caused havoc. It, then, turns to an
interpretation of Freud by arguing that the
physical changes in women's bodies supply the
motivation to their actions and influence their
thinking.
While the Samiti and the Sangh are tied together
in their mutual quest for the Hindu nation,
suggests Ms. Bacchetta, they do not necessarily
have the same entity in mind. Therefore, the
Samiti, while it borrows the figure of Bharatmata
from the Sangh, does not represent her as a
victim needing the protection of her masculine,
Hindu nationalist, sons. Neither does the Samiti
valorise virility and machismo. The Samiti sees
negative Hindu males as those who harass Hindu
women, fail to respect them, and who marry
outside their caste and religion. Similarly,
negative Hindu women are usually hapless and
ignorant victims, `modern' women, feminists.
What about Muslim men and women? Here the
Samiti's representation of Muslim men, argues
Bacchetta, is more rigid than the Sangh. It views
Muslim men as entities that degrade women and
Muslim women as weak and inferior compared to
Hindu women. The Sangh, while it banishes
sexuality from its ideal of the Hindu male,
projects what it has rejected on to Muslim men
who are portrayed as sexually overactive and a
threat to Hindu women. The Sangh proceeds to
liken Muslim women as reproductive organs of
their enemies. Ms. Bacchetta gives a detailed
account of the arguments and texts where the
Sangh blames Muslim men and women for India's
overpopulation, and its consequent economic woes.
It claims that the Muslims use the `population
bomb' through polygamy to overwhelm the Hindus.
What is significant in all accounts of the Sangh
and the Samiti is the total absence of any notion
of Muslim motherhood or motherliness. The very
idea of motherhood is reduced to the biological
act of producing babies.
The Sangh relentlessly argues for the liberation,
enlightenment, education and employment of Muslim
women, something that it rejects in its notion of
the ideal Hindu woman. In a pamphlet produced in
2000, it marginally alters this view in relation
to Hindu women by suggesting that women have a
right to a role in public life as long as they
remain committed to the family and motherhood
ideals (Nari Jagaran Aur Sangh). Other than this
minor concession recently, the Sangh played a
negative role in the debates leading up to the
Hindu Code Bill in the 1950s. It claimed that
granting of rights to women would "cause great
psychological upheaval" to men and "lead to
mental disease and distress" (Bacchetta, p.124).
The result would be a race of effeminate men.
Similarly, the Sangh opposed the Hindu Law of
Succession on the grounds that it was regressive.
To understand Uma Bharti, therefore, is to
understand fully the implications of her
rejection of the Sangh-favoured model of the
ideal woman, represented symbolically by the
Bharatmata figure. Her fiery speeches, her
ability to court controversy and remain forever
in the public eye represent her rejection of the
Sangh's model of `domesticated femininity'. To
accomplish a break from the rules set by the
brotherhood of saffron and to assert her
individuality, she must assume the warrior
qualities of Ashtabhuja. At the same time, she
must assert her fidelity to the cause of the
Hindu nation by an excess of compliance with the
ideal.
If this translates into a fanatical opposition to
Muslims, Christians, things and people foreign in
all forms and guises, including a regressive
model of swadeshi, and an unapologetic allegiance
to the Ram temple movement, it is only an
assertion of an otherwise truncated model of
womanhood available within the Hindu nationalist
paradigm. In this attempt at asserting her own
individuality, coupled with her status as a
renunciate and the lack of `upper' caste status,
Uma Bharti manages to imitate to a great degree
the Sangh's model of the ideal male while
privileging the more aggressive aspects of
femininity outlined by the Samiti.
The Sangh Parivar's quibble about a growing
Muslim population is also part of this demonology
that helps keep afloat the goal of a Hindu
nation. Demeaning Muslim women is only one
instance of this strategy. The real issue is the
failure of the Hindu nationalist project to
persuade Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, tribals and
Dalits, to register themselves as Hindus. As
early as 1931, the Hindu Mahasabha was passing
resolutions demanding a more inclusive notion of
the Hindu community. This failure led to the
theory that the increase in the Muslim population
was primarily due to conversions, only to be
followed by the `population bomb' theory.
Uma Bharti and the Sangh Parivar's anxiety about
its perception of the growing number of Muslims
represent the ultimate failure of the Hindu
nationalist enterprise. The Sangh grants itself
the idea of individuality by affixing `swayam' in
its nomenclature, while the Samiti is meant
merely for Hindu women to `serve' the Hindu
nation defined and determined by men. In the case
of Muslim women, the Sangh recognises them
neither as individuals nor as part of a
collectivity. This is where the dream of a Hindu
nation justifiably falters.
______
[5]
Economic and Political Weekly
September 18, 2004
Book Review
Exploding Myths on Conversions
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Identity, Hegemony and Resistance: Towards the
Social History of Conversions in Orissa, 1800-2000
by Biswamoy Pati;
Three Essays Collective,
New Delhi, 2003;
pp 57+i-xvii, Rs 180.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anshu Malhotra
The Three Essays Collective is a new and welcome
entrant in the publishing world, adding an
academic dimension to debates on contemporary
issues through short, sharp essays presented in
the pamphlet mould, without losing the rigour of
scholarly work. The book under review is a
handsomely produced tract on what has become a
highly polemical issue, namely, the question of
?conversions?. In recent years, there has been a
range of sophisticated writing exploring issues
like the different dimensions of varied
missionary activity in India at least from the
time of the Portuguese, the relationship of the
missions with the colonial state and with
indigenous society at various levels, and a need
to understand the dynamics of ?conversions?,
whether high caste individual or low caste mass.
The raucous and sustained anti-Christian rhetoric
of the likes of the VHP, often culminating in
grisly acts of violence such as the murder of
Graham Staines and his sons in Orissa in 1999,
and at the same time the gains made by the Sangh
parivar in apparently ?reconverting?
tribals/adivasis to Hinduism, has pushed some to
delve into and elucidate on the angst of the
Hindu Right against Christianity, and to
understand their number-crunching politics in the
predominantly tribal areas of states like
Gujarat, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa.
Biswamoy Pati brings another dimension to this
debate by challenging the very idea of
?reconversions? of tribals and outcastes of
Orissa, firstly by asserting that they were not
?Hindu? to begin with and therefore the question
of ?re?conversion does not arise, and secondly
and concomitantly explicating a long and gradual
historical process of ?conversion? of tribals to
Hinduism through their incorporation into the
caste system, thereby putting a question mark on
the assumed non-proselytising nature of Hinduism.
The questions Pati has raised about the apparent
?innocence? of Hinduism with regard to the
question of conversions as against ?culpable?
proselytising faiths, or even the gradual
processes of change and the accumulation of
identities, may not be entirely new. A few
historians have also raised similar issues; for
example, Eaton (1994) has discussed the gradual
Islamisation of the people of East Bengal, and
Sarkar (2004) has recently asked what may have
happened to the large Buddhist population of
India, or how was the spread of Hindu culture in
south-east Asia accomplished? Yet Pati?s remains
a very important argument, both because it
challenges the common sense understanding of the
nature of Hinduism, and at the same time draws
attention to the multifarious pulls on the
socio-economic and cultural world of the tribals
of Orissa to point to the layers in the
acculturation of a tribal to a Hindu over a long
period in the state.
Drawing on the work of B P Sahu on early medieval
Orissa, associated with the period of
feudalisation and the emergence of castes, Pati
shows both the transplanting of brahmins from the
gangetic plain to Orissa and their creation from
among the indigenous population, and also
discusses the manner in which the adivasis were
absorbed into Hindu society as sudras and their
chiefs as kshatriyas. With the establishment of
the colonial state in Orissa, this move towards
Hinduisation got a further boost, especially as
the agricultural interventions of the colonial
state ? commercialisation, monetisation, and the
establishment of irrigation projects ? required
pushing tribals to settled agriculture. Pati
shows the complex ways in which the colonial
state legitimised itself by encouraging select
elements of Orissa?s culture, established
relations with often ?invented? princes, and was
complicit in the desire of the princes to
establish their claims to rule by conjuring
ancient relation with the adivasis. Thus, along
with Hinduisation, the
?kshatriyaisation?/?rajputisation?/?oriyaisation?
of certain groups was accomplished. On the other
hand, colonial rule also unleashed a number of
conflicts over issues like the erosion of rights
over forest use by tribals, or the extraction of
forced labour from them. Importantly, Pati shows
how some groups took advantage of this economic
situation to establish themselves within the
caste system, for example, the rich peasants,
while the marginal groups experienced a worsening
scenario, like the Paharia tribals. Refreshingly,
it is always this dialectic within the indigenous
society in its relationship with Hinduism and the
colonial state that informs the present work.
In a brief section, Pati also looks at the role
of the nationalist movement, especially in its
Gandhian phase, which may have played a role in
further Hinduising some tribals and outcastes.
The adoption of the name harijan by some, or
turning to vegetarianism, were modes through
which this occurred, though the author is
quick to assert that this was also a legitimate
route to achieving self-respect. The author
points to the adoption by the post-colonial
governments of some of the modes of the colonial
bureaucracy in order to establish their
legitimacy among the tribals. He also notes the
often overt attempts made by governments, and not
necessarily of the right, to exploit the issue of
?reconversions?.
A little disappointingly however, Pati hardly
discusses the issue of conversion to
Christianity, giving a rather bland explanation
that Christianity was not a ?serious option? as
it was too closely associated with the
exploitative colonial state. The relationship of
the missionaries with the colonial state ranged
from the collaborative to the oppositional, a
contrariety that has been documented in a
plethora of writings [Frykenberg 2003]. Indeed,
his own materials seem to suggest greater
complexities than he is willing to concede. The
example of Gangpur Mundas that he discusses, who
started a no-rent movement in 1939, which was
visible among the Lutheran Mundas rather than the
Roman Catholics, is a statement that is a pointer
to the spectrum of relationship of the
missionaries and the converts to the state and
indigenous population, whose implications must be
explored by the author. Again, when he talks of
the 1950s conversion of the kandhas to
Christianity, it cannot just be the absence of
the colonial state that is salient here; a
serious look is required at the
continuities/discontinuities in the work of the
missionaries in this area from an earlier period.
Another question that requires serious comment is
that of taking on a new identity, for example,
that of a Christian in a public platform and
performance. While the author has delineated, and
rightly so, the process of a gradual accumulation
of identities, the question of sharp breaks and a
public taking on of a new persona remain equally
important, and the politics this represents needs
to be addressed. Perhaps the present work, more
in the nature of a concise essay, did not permit
the space to investigate these questions, and one
looks forward to a larger study that will take
them on.
These questions are important especially in the
scenario painted by Pati in the postscript. The
attempts at sharp polarisation of the people
indulged in by the Hindu Right in the wake of the
Staines murders, and the celebration of the
murderer Dara Singh as a hero, the fear of
disappearance of civil society, is a despairing
situation that can be countered by historicising
the process of identity formation, as the author
has done, showing the multiple identities that
continue to be nurtured, and the politics, both
empowering and otherwise, behind it. Again, it is
not enough to say that communalism is ?clouding?
the ?real? world of poverty, hunger and
unemployment, problems especially acute in
Orissa, but also to understand why certain
choices are made, and not others, in difficult
conditions. The book is indubitably an important
work both for exploding the myths that sustain
the propaganda and programmes of the right and
for underlining the necessity of understanding
the historical processes that make us complex and
multi-layered peoples.
References
Eaton, Richard M (1994): The Rise of Islam and
Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760, Oxford University
Press, New Delhi.
Frykenberg, Robert E (2003): ?Introduction:
Dealing with Contested Definitions and
Controversial Perspectives,? in the book edited
by him, Christians and Missionaries in India:
Cross-Cultural Communication since 1500,
Routledge, Curzon, London, pp 1-23.
Sarkar, Sumit (2004): ?Christianity, Hindutva and
the Question of Conversions? in his Beyond
Nationalist Frames: Relocating Postmodernism,
Hindutva, History, Permanent Black, Delhi, (first
published 2002), pp 215-43.
_____
[6]
Indian historian SUMIT SARKAR
at CONCORDIA University, Montreal
TWO LECTURES:
"Secularism in a Globalizing India" Wednesday 6 October, 1:15-2:30pm
Room FG-B060 Faubourg, 1616 Ste-Catherine ouest
"Democratic Politics as Majoritarian Tyranny or
Minority Protection – lessons from India’s
post-colonial history"
Thursday 7 October 7-9pm
DB Clarke Theatre, Concordia University, Hall
Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve ouest
Professor SUMIT SARKAR is one of India’s most
eminent historians. Until his recent retirement,
he was Professor of History at Delhi University,
India. His most recent publication is Beyond
Nationalist Frames: Relocating Postmodernism,
Hindu Fundamentalism, History. His other works
include the classic Modern India 1885-1947,
Writing Social History and Swadeshi Movement in
India 1903-08. Professor Sarkar has been General
Secretary of the Indian History Congress and
Visiting Professor at Oxford, Canberra, Paris and
Hawaii.
presented by PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION
SERIES, in conjunction with the Departments of
English, History, Political Science and Religion
and the South Asian Studies Program, CONCORDIA
UNIVERSITY
supported by the SHASTRI INDO-CANADIAN STUDIES
INSTITUTE (Celebrating its 35th anniversary) and
CERAS (Centre sur l'asie du sud)
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
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