SACW | 26 Sep 2004
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sat Sep 25 21:21:57 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 26 September, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
=======
[1] Securing India: Treating Unlikely as Likely (Gautam Navlakha)
[2] Bangladesh:
- More Than 6,000 Arrested in Bangladesh (VOA)
- Crackdown on opposition : Mass arrests can
never be justified (edit, The Daily Star)
- Jahangirnagar University teacher asks
female students to wear burqa [veil]
[3] Pakistan: Why do other nations hate us? (Khaled Ahmed)
[4] India:
- Gujarat cops' new beat: Moral policing
- Moral brigade on the rampage in Kashmir
[5] India: ANHAD & Coalition for Secular
Democracy Seminar "Why Remember Gandhi Today?"
(Bombay, Oct.4)
[6] India: Letter to the Editor (Mukul Dube)
[7] India: Among Recent Additions on www.sacw.net:
- POTA in Gujarat and Its Meaning for India (Zakia Jowher and Mukul Dube)
- State Accountability in Communal Riots:
Proposed Law on Duties of State Authorities
(Harsh Mander)
[8] India: Cut out the censor? (Utpal Borpujari)
[9] India: Gandhi vs Savarkar: What of the others
notables and not so notable nameless others
(i) The Kala Pani story - Neither Savarkar,
nor Gandhi, represents its nameless heroes
(Manini Chatterjee)
(ii) Victim of brahmanical secularism in India (V.B.Rawat)
[10] [3 articles on the recent hullabaloo around the Indian census reports ]
- The Sangh Parivar continues to thrive on
myths about the growth rate of the Muslim
population (T.K. Rajalakshmi)
- An irrelevant enumeration (Shardul Chaturvedi)
- Indian census and sensibilities (Shardul Chaturvedi)
--------------
[1]
Economic and Political Weekly
September 18, 2004
SECURING INDIA: TREATING UNLIKELY AS LIKELY
There is much to gain by disengaging from
military suppression of popular aspirations,
insisting on negotiations and thereby
reducing the total defence budget. All this can
help pay for a much needed increase in social
investment and expansion of the country's social
capital base. An actual reduction in the wasteful
use of human and material resources could
translate into considerably more. Not the least
of this would be the release of pent-up energies
of the people unburdened by war and want.
In short, the security thus brought about is
worth fighting for.
Gautam Navlakha
http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2004&leaf=09&filename=7695&filetype=html
______
[2]
Voice of America, September 25, 2004
MORE THAN 6,000 ARRESTED IN BANGLADESH
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=BA62C419-5C11-42CE-9F46295503CCD692&title=More%20Than%206%2C000%20Arrested%20in%20Bangladesh&catOID=45C9C78E-88AD-11D4-A57200A0CC5EE46C&categoryname=South%20%26%20Central%20Asia
o o o
The Daily Star, September 26, 2004 | Editorial
CRACKDOWN ON OPPOSITION
MASS ARRESTS CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFIED
NOT five months after the government launched a
similar crackdown on opposition party workers and
activists, it has again initiated a country-wide
mass arrest of the grass-roots level organisers
of the main opposition parties. That the
government would resort to this kind of
heavy-handed and undemocratic tactic is neither
acceptable nor politically astute.
We urged the government to give the opposition
the space to fully air their grievances in
parliament last week. Not only did the government
choose not to permit the opposition space in
parliament, it has evidently decided that it
cannot afford to give the opposition space
outside of parliament as well. Indeed, the fact
that this latest crackdown comes on the heels of
a successful human chain programme seems to
indicate that the government is seeking to stifle
any expression of opposition discontent.
The mass arrests raise all kinds of serious
questions as to the rule of law and respect for
civil rights. The mass arrests of April have now
been thoroughly discredited for their excesses
and for the thousands of innocent people who were
thrown behind bars for no reason. It seems as
though the government is intent on repeating its
misstep of five months ago, and while (unlike
last time) there are no reports as yet of people
uninvolved with politics being arrested, the
targeting of opposition party activists under
Section 54 and the random and arbitrary nature of
the arrests make it clear that the government is
once again going too far.
We have long opposed Section 54 for specifically
this reason -- that it can be abused to
incarcerate those whom the government deems to be
troublesome without due process of law and strict
evidentiary standards. This certainly seems to be
the case with the current arrests.
This latest round of arrests is a huge mistake on
the part of the government. Not only is it acting
in an undemocratic manner that is incompatible
with the precepts and ideals of this nation's
constitution, but the only possible long-term
result of such measures will be a further
diminution of respect for the government among
the general public.
o o o
The Daily Star, September 26, 2004
JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY (JU) TEACHER ASKS FEMALE STUDENTS TO WEAR BURQA
http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/09/26/d4092601077.htm
______
[3]
The Daily Times, September 24, 2004
WHY DO OTHER NATIONS HATE US?
Khaled Ahmed's Urdu Press Review
Our complaint is that everyone is stepping on our
tail. All over the world the Muslims are under
attack. Islam is a religion of peace but everyone
says it teaches violence. Muslims are poor with
few resources but they are labelled terrorists.
Why is the Muslim world under attack? Why is
Pakistan being vilified in the region and at the
global level?
Daily Pakistan (July 12, 2004) quoted Karachi
police as saying that Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr
Arshad Waheed kept Al Qaeda leader Abu Musa'ab
Zerqavi in their house in Karachi and looked
after him and then sent him to South Waziristan
for onward journey to Afghanistan. Both the
Karachi doctors were revealed as Jundullah
members by the Jundullah leader, Ataullah. The
doctors had admitted that they were members of
Jundullah and that they had provided medical aid
to Al Qaeda and sent men to be trained as Al
Qaeda agents to Wana to Nek Muhammad through his
brother. According to Jang the two doctors
admitted that they had been members of the Jamaat
Islami student wing and maintained till late
their relationship with the Jamiat Tulaba Islam.
They also admitted to helping Al Qaeda.
The entire doctors' community in Pakistan has
been supporting the two Karachi doctors against
the charges. They have been taking out
processions in favour of them. Yet, when Zerqavi
killed nearly a dozen poor Nepalis in Iraq, the
Nepalis fell on the office of the PIA and
generally blamed Pakistan. Why? Zerqavi is a
terrorist who has also killed Pakistanis. Why did
the Nepalis attack us? The reason is that Zerqavi
was hosted by us and sent for training in
terrorism in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. The
world knows about it and the Nepalis too knew
about it. Zerqavi was once our man. It is quite
another matter that he has now started killing
us. The fault is ours. Why did we host a man who
had this kind of character? Why do the Russians
hate us? Because we hosted the Chechen terrorist
Shamyl Bassaev and sent him for training in
terrorism to Al Qaeda camps. The only country
which does not know these facts is Pakistan.
Terrorism has a meta-history known to the entire
world which is now scared of us and will take
revenge whenever it can. Did the Karachi doctors
know what their enthusiasm for Al Qaeda would
mean for Pakistan? How could they come to this
realisation if we are ourselves unanimous in
supporting them? [...].
______
[4]
Indian Express, September 24, 2004
GUJARAT COPS' NEW BEAT: MORAL POLICING
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=100535
The Times of India, September 26, 2004
MORAL BRIGADE ON THE RAMPAGE IN KASHMIR
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/863469.cms
______
[5]
ANHAD & Coalition for Secular Democracy
Cordially Invite You to a
Seminar
WHY REMEMBER GANDHI TODAY?
Date: Monday, October 4, 2004 Time: 4.00-7.00pm
Venue: Convention Hall, 4th Floor, Y.B. Chavan Center
Y. Chavan Pratisthan, Sachivalay, J. Bhosale Road, Nariman Point, Mumbai
Moderator: Harsh Mander
4.00-4.40 Keynote Address: Prof. KN Panikkar
4.40-5.20-Religion in Gandhi's Thought &
Practice- Ram Das Bhatkal, Dr.Ram Puniyani
5.20-5.40-Gandhi's Mode of Conflict Resolution-Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer
5.40-6.00-Morality in Politics- Justice Dharmadhikari
6.00-6.20-Secularism & Civil Society- Kumar Ketkar
6.40-6.50-Release of the Marathi & Hindi
Translations of Dr.Ram Puniyani's book 'The
Second Assasination of Gandhi
6.50-7.00- Vote of thanks by Suma Josson
Anhad
c/0 Bhupesh Gupta Bhawan, 3rd Floor, Leningrad
Chowk, 85, Sayani Road, Prabhadevi,
Mumbai-400025, Tel- 9819235134
______
[6] [Letter to the Editor]
D-504 Purvasha
Mayur Vihar 1
Delhi 110091
24 September 2004
What Shri Murli Manohar Joshi said about Prof. R.S. Sharma in
Patna was reproduced verbatim by at least one Hindi newspaper:
"He has committed rape on history." Prof. Sharma is reported
to have remarked later that, at the age of 84, he was no
longer capable of any kind of rape. Can there have been a more
obscene response to a perfectly rational argument?
Prof. Romila Thapar was not charged with rape; but her crime is
no less grave. She continues to muck about in ancient swamps, Shri
Joshi said, and has not troubled to look at the marvellous
findings of the historical research conducted in the country's
physics laboratories, of which the former Education Minister was
absentee head for so long.
Mukul Dube
______
[7]
Among Recent Additions on www.sacw.net:
POTA in Gujarat and Its Meaning for India
by Zakia Jowher and Mukul Dube [August 15, 2004]
http://www.sacw.net/Gujarat2002/Dube_Jowher15August2004.html
State Accountability in Communal Riots:
Proposed Law on Duties of State Authorities
by Harsh Mander [ August 13, 2004]
http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/harshmander13092004.html
______
[8]
Deccan Herald, September 26, 2004
Cut out the censor?
The last word has not yet been said on film
censorship. A panel has been set up to review the
Cinematograph Act.
Like a seasonal affliction, the controversy
surrounding the Censor Board - officially known
as the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC)
- is back again, riding the crest of the latest
round of skirmishes with filmmakers. The CBFC,
whose name could mislead people who have no
knowledge of it - into believing that its job is
to simply give certificates to films and not to
"censor" them, has in recent times either banned
or objected to scenes in films (just like it has
done in the past) that deal with issues from
politics to health, making the hackles of
believers of freedom of expression rise -
especially of the film industry.
But this time, filmmakers, especially those
dealing with the realism of the day through
documentaries, are not taking it lying down. Many
have refused to send their entries to the
National Film Awards as well as the
government-run Mumbai International Film Festival
(MIFF) as a mark of protest against the
participatory rule that films must procure a
censor certificate. The immediate result is that
the stage is set for a wider debate on whether
one needs censorship at all, and the government
seems willing to address the issue this time. A
committee of eminent persons will be set up to
take a re-look at the Cinematograph Act, 1952,
that lays down the rules for censorship.
Something bigger is at stake: a majority of
filmmakers believe the best way is to either do
away with censorship altogether or introduce
"self-regulation" through a body comprising
eminent film industry people who will not
"censor" films per se, but will give ratings
depending on their suitability to different
viewers, as it is done in, say, the US. The
government is also agreeable to the idea of
self-regulation, at least in principle.
In the Indian context, where the government of
the day would never like to let go - the CBFC -
which allows it to control content in a medium as
powerful as cinema, an agreeable form of this
self-regulatory body could comprise not only
filmmakers but also a limited number of eminent
persons from other creative fields like
literature and arts, and possibly, an I&B
Ministry representative to coordinate activities.
If the government is serious about it, as Mr
Reddy says, then it should start the debate now,
involving all the stakeholders - filmmakers,
media, the intelligentsia and viewers, to
generate ideas on film censorship, and whether
self-regulation could work in a country as vast
and as diverse as India.
The government, as can be expected, is cautious
in its approach. As Mr Reddy said, "There is a
need to re-look the entire Act. While I am all
for progressive films, I do not know how I can do
away with regulatory structure altogether. We can
think of an alternate structure, like a
self-regulatory system. His ministry, he said,
would soon form the committee to have a "relook"
at the Cinematograph Act and would eagerly await
its report. "We will not hesitate to make changes
in the law, provided they are liberal and
practical," was his view.
Noted director Shyam Benegal, who will shortly be
releasing his latest film on Netaji Subhash
Chandra Bose, is one strong votary for abolition
of censorship altogether, just like many others
from his fraternity, but at the same time
stresses that there has to be some kind of
regulation in India. "I am against censorship and
do not believe that it works and will work in the
futureŠ (but) I do believe that some kind of
regulation is necessary in a country as diverse
as India, though we do not need a system where
the government has something to do with all
this," he says. In effect, he advocates a
self-regulatory body, just as his illustrious
colleague Govind Nihalani does.
"I am personally against censorship. I prefer a
rating system, giving the responsibility to
filmmakers," Nihalani says, almost echoing
Benegal's views. The director, whose latest film
"Dev" took off from the events arising out of the
Gujarat riots, says, "A censor policy should be
so that it can evolve with time, as values,
thinking and society change." While advocating a
rating system overseen by a self-regulatory
intra-industry body, Nihalani is aware that
initially a new system might lead to a lot of
muck, in the form of "dirty" films by
unscrupulous directors. But, as he says, "All
filmmakers are not so irresponsible. Initially,
there will be a lot of dirt, like when a wound
opens, a lot of pus comes out. It should be
allowed to come out. One should remember that
film ultimately is a medium of family
entertainment. The question is ultimately whether
the family can watch a film together. Give the
responsibility to filmmakers, and they will
fulfil it."
The ineffectiveness of the CBFC, as much as its
overzealous traits, as many point out, is
apparent from the way "hate films" were being
circulated in Gujarat by allegedly Sangh
Parivar-backed elements after the riots without a
censor certificate. Manu Rewal, whose "Chai Pani
Etc" has run into censorship problems, puts the
issue in perspective when he comments on the
objections to certain portions of his film. For
instance, the heroine smoking a cigarette. "This
objection is when all kinds of images can be
downloaded from the web and where international
programming as well as simulated sex in item
numbers are used as promotional vehicles on
television sets."
While only time will tell how effectively TV
channels adhere to censorship rules, the people
would be more interested in knowing how fast the
government moves in starting a debate on whether
we need censorship, and if the self-regulation
system can be introduced soon.
UTPAL BORPUJARI
in New Delhi
*Chand Bujh Gaya", a Hindi potboiler starring
Aamir Khan's down-and-out brother Faisal Khan and
set in the backdrop of Gujarat riots, is refused
a censor certificate because the screen chief
minister looks too much like Narendra Modi. The
regional Censor Board in Chennai refused to give
debutante director Manu Rewal a certificate for
"Chai Pani Etc" if he did not delete scenes
showing Konkona Sen Sharma smoking a cigarette
and another character using the term
"reservationwallahs".
*Many film personalities, including Shyam
Benegal, Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowariker, Govind
Nihalani, Shabana Azmi, Anand Patwardhan, Javed
Akhtar and Aparna Sen appeal to the government to
ask the Board to lift the ban on Rakesh Sharma's
internationally-acclaimed documentary "Final
Solution", which seeks to analyse the politics
behind the Gujarat riots.
______
[9] [Gandhi vs Savarkar: What of the others notables and nameless heroes ]
(i)
Indian Express - September 21, 2004
The Kala Pani story
Neither Savarkar, nor Gandhi, represents its nameless heroes
Manini Chatterjee
As Sushma Swaraj leads a contingent of 125 odd
BJP MPs in a so-called satyagraha outside
Cellular Jail in Port Blair today, chances are
that not one of them has heard of Nani Gopal
Mukherji or Baba Gurmukh Singh, Shiv Kumar or
Subodh Roy.
In the summer of 1912, a couple of years after
the first batch of political prisoners since 1857
were deported to the dreaded Cellular Jail in the
Andamans, the teenaged Mukherji went on a hunger
strike that lasted over a month. He was
protesting against the horrific conditions in
jail where prisoners were made to do slave labour
- rope-making, coir-pounding and oil pressing.
Oil pressing was the worst. Memoirs of prisoners
of that period (such as Sri Aurobindo's brother
Barin Ghose's Tale of My Exile and Upendranath
Banerjee's Nirbasiter Atmakatha) recalled how the
more hardy among them were yoked to millstones
like bullocks and made to walk round and round in
circles from six a.m. to six p.m. everyday.
Protests were met with reduced rations and
fettering to the wall. Diseases like malaria and
dysentry were endemic and many died or went
insane.
Baba Gurmukh Singh, convicted in the first Lahore
Conspiracy Case, arrived in this hell in 1916.
After the royal amnesty to selected political
prisoners announced in December 1919, Gurmukh
Singh was sent back to the mainland but managed
to escape from captivity. Undeterred by the
horrors he had faced in Kala Pani, he continued
to be part of the national liberation movement,
was caught in 1937 and sent back to Cellular
Jail. There, he played a central role in
educating the bulk of ''revolutionary
terrorists'' in the then nascent ideas of
scientific socialism.
Shiv Kumar, a member of Bhagat Singh's Hindustan
Socialist Republican Army, was ''transported'' to
the Andamans after Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and
Sukhdev were hanged in Lahore Jail in 1931. As
was Subodh Roy - the youngest member of
''Masterda'' Surya Sen's Indian Republican Army
that conducted the famous Chittagong Armoury
Raids on April 18, 1930. Touching 90, Roy remains
a steadfast worker of the CPI(M) in its Alimuddin
Street headquarters in Kolkata, his palms still
bearing the scars of rope-making in Cellular Jail.
Kumar and Roy were not alone. From 1910 to 1937,
hundreds of political prisoners - a large
majority of them drawn from the
''revolutionary-terrorist'' groups active in
Bengal, followed by freedom fighters from Punjab
and a sprinkling from other states such as
Maharashtra in the early phase - were imprisoned
in Cellular Jail. The aim was to keep them away
from the mainstream and the mainland, and break,
over time, both their body and spirit.
The saddest part of the raging controversy over
the Swatantrya Jyot - first designed under the
instructions of former petroleum minister Ram
Naik and then redesigned under the instructions
of present petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar
- is that caught in the crossfire of contemporary
politics, the real heroes and martyrs of Cellular
Jail have once again been denied their place in
history.
For Ram Naik and the sangh parivar as a whole,
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is the only memorable
hero among the thousands who lived and died in
Cellular Jail. For Mani Shankar Aiyar, the
alternative to Savarkar is Gandhi. The Mahatma
may have been the greatest leader of India's
freedom movement but he had always stood against
those who believed in an armed struggle against
the British Raj and who, without exception,
peopled the dank cells in the Andamans. After the
historic collective hunger strike inside Cellular
Jail in 1937, Gandhi played a signal role in the
negotiations that led to a general amnesty for
all detenues and political prisoners and their
repatriation from the island. Yet, to replace
Savarkar with Gandhi does little justice either
to him or to the ''revolutionary terrorists'' who
leavened with their blood the mainstream Gandhian
freedom struggle.
The choice of Savarkar is a much greater
travesty. True, Savarkar in his early years was a
radical who organised students, first in Pune and
then in London. His daring escape from the
porthole of a ship at Marseilles while he was
being brought back to India to face trial has
also passed into Marathi folklore, not least
because of his skilful penmanship. But as far as
Cellular Jail is concerned, Savarkar's
eleven-year spell there did not enhance or deepen
his early anti-imperialist inclinations; it ended
it.
The conditions in jail, testified by numerous
less-celebrated accounts than that of Savarkar,
were inhuman. But unlike Savarkar, few of the
Ghadr revolutionaries or Bengal ''terrorists''
pleaded with the British authorities for mercy.
Nor did they agree to give up their struggle for
India's liberty in exchange of their own personal
liberty.
Savarkar did both, and what is more, he kept to
his promise. On being freed from prison, Savarkar
repudiated his past and devoted himself to
preparing the blueprint of a Hindu Rashtra. His
earlier anger against foreign rule was replaced
by a pernicious thesis of ''punyabhoomi'' and
''pitribhoomi'' that rendered all non-Hindus
''alien'' to India. And unlike Khudiram Bose or
Surya Sen, Asfaqulla Khan or Bhagat Singh who
inspired generations of youth to join the freedom
struggle, Savarkar, post-Andamans, is known to
have inspired only the Nathuram Godses of this
land.
For the BJP and RSS, Savarkar is a hero because
of what he did after he came out of Cellular
Jail. The premier ideologue of Hindutva, he has
also become a useful icon because he is possibly
the only ''freedom fighter'' that the sangh
parivar can lay claim to.
But that does not make him representative of the
hundreds of young men who turned prematurely old
in Cellular Jail, men who suffered together, who
organised hunger strikes and bitterly fought for
better conditions; who set up their own library
and even a ''university'' against great odds.
The BJP-led NDA government sought to wipe out the
memory of that struggle by making Savarkar the
sole hero of Cellular Jail, erecting his statue
and naming the Port Blair airport after him. It
is time to change that - not by naming it after
Gandhi or Nehru but simply by calling it
''Shahid'' or ''Balidan'' in the collective
memory of the faceless heroes of Kala Pani.
o o o o
(ii)
SACW | 24 September 2004
Victim of brahmanical secularism in India
By V.B.Rawat
An interesting debate has started about Savarkar
in India. Savarkar, who propounded the two nation
theory much before Jinnah could do so but the
unfortunate part about the entire debate is
crucification of analysis and presentation of
thoughts according to once ideological
perceptions. How history or historian glorify one
and vilify the others is visible when I read an
article in the 'Outlook', magazine on Legacy of
EVR. The author claimed that there is no one who
remembers Periyar today in Tamilnadu. Ofcourse,
when the bramins were at the helm of writing
history in our Universities and colleges and the
subsequent governments who came to power purely
on the legacy and historic movements of Periyar,
started compromising with brahmanical forces,
then we cannot think of any Brahmin secular
complaining about conspicuous silence over the
Dravidian movement and its historic legacy. One
may argue in the same way as who is remembering
Gandhi in India and even his state of Gujarat and
through a very a powerful khadi establishment of
power. The fact is that despite all
reservations, Gandhi was not killed by the Dalit
or Muslim or any OBC but pure Maharastrian
Brahmin. The same Brahmins who wanted India, a
Hindu Rastra and at the same point of time did
not want a separate Muslim land? How could it
have been possible? They must thank their stars
that their India does not revolve around Nagpur
and Pune if their entire thesis was accepted.
[...]
[FULL TEXT AT :
http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/VBRawat092004.html
]
______
[10] [3 ARTICLES ON THE RECENT HULLABALOO AROUND THE INDIAN CENSUS REPORTS ]
(i)
Frontline - Volume 21 - Issue 20, Sept. 25 - Oct. 08, 2004
The population bogey
T.K. Rajalakshmi
in New Delhi
Disregarding the well-established principles of
demography, the Sangh Parivar continues to thrive
on myths about the growth rate of the Muslim
population.
IN the first week of September, the Census Office
released the First Report on Religion Data
emerging from the Census of India, 2001. The
comparisons made in it of "unadjusted" and
"adjusted" growth rates of the population of
various religious communities created confusion
and a political controversy. The Bharatiya Janata
Party was quick to pounce on it, raising an alarm
at the growing number of Indians, particularly
the minority communities. With the Maharashtra
elections round the corner, the Census figures
became fodder for its campaign.
In Bangalore, on September 7, after a meeting of
the party's national office-bearers, BJP
president M. Venkaiah Naidu called for the
uniform adoption of population control measures
by people belonging to various communities. The
findings of the Census, he said, should be a
cause of concern for all those who think of
India's unity and integrity in the long term. He
was concerned that while the rate of growth of
Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists had come down, the
population of Muslims and Christians was growing
at a higher rate. Any imbalance, he cautioned,
was not a healthy trend. It was time for a
national debate on introducing incentives and
disincentives to encourage the two-child norm,
irrespective of religious considerations. The
party expressed its commitment to the national
target of population stabilisation by 2026. It
also expressed concern over the "demographic
invasion" of over 1.2 crore Bangladeshi
"infiltrators", especially in the northeastern
region.
A day later, Census Commissioner and
Registrar-General of India J.K. Banthia clarified
that he had, while releasing the report,
explained to the media the facts relating to
"unadjusted" and "adjusted" data. The
"unadjusted" growth rates of population were
based on a comparison of the all-India totals of
populations emerging from the periodic Censuses,
without taking into consideration the fact that
no enumeration was done in Assam in 1981, and in
Jammu and Kashmir in 1991. In other words, they
were based on comparing incomparable data. The
"adjusted" figures, on the other hand, involved
comparisons of population totals excluding the
figures for Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. Banthia
said that these revised or adjusted figures
showed that the growth rate of the Muslim
population had been steadily declining over the
years since 1971 and that motives were being
attributed to what was at best a clerical error.
While the initial reactions of the BJP are
understandable given its ideological orientation,
it was surprising to see the issue being
resurrected on September 11-12 in a different
form despite the Census Commissioner's
clarification. During the two-day BJP Chief
Ministers' conclave held in New Delhi, it was
proposed that the Chief Ministers should push a
population policy, favouring incentives and
disincentives and based on a two-child norm, for
all sections of the population. On September 16,
the BJP president announced the setting up of a
committee on "demographic invasion" to be chaired
by former Union Human Resource Development
Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. The committee was
to focus on the "infiltration" from Bangladesh.
Despite clarifications, the BJP and its
ideological affiliates continued to make
population growth an issue. On September 19, the
Web site of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)
carried an article suggesting that Muslims
constituted one-third of Assam's population. The
report is likely to create an uproar in the State
which has seen agitations on the `infiltration'
issue. The facts, however, as borne out by the
Census report, are that in Assam and in Tripura,
the growth rate of the Muslim population is the
same and not higher than the national average for
the community. And in West Bengal, it is below
the national average. Hence the infiltration
theory is simply not corroborated by the figures.
An article by Sangh Parivar ideologue and
columnist S. Gurumurthy in the same Web site says
that the Census Commissioner should be
congratulated on bringing out the truth. The
article, titled "Congratulate him for bringing
out the truth, bluntly", Gurumurthy writes: "The
Census figures for 2001 have come out for the
first time with statistics on religious
demography in India. That the Muslim population
in India is moving ahead of the rest is
undeniable. Not denied in fact. Whether it is
rising by 36 per cent in a decade or 29 per cent
is the dispute. That all others Hindus, Sikhs,
Jains and Buddhists put together rise only
two-thirds as fast too is undeniable." The
Census-based fact that more Hindus than Muslims
were added to the Indian population between 1991
and 2001 (4.8 Hindus for every one Muslim) was
conveniently ignored while making such an
assertion.
The September 19 issue of the RSS organ,
Organiser, also carried several articles on the
issue, including one titled "Census politics with
Muslim numbers". The article suggests that in
just two days, the Census Commissioner, under
pressure from the ruling Congress, altered the
figures of the rate of growth of the Muslim
population by juggling statistics. The editorial
titled "The Population Bomb" says: "The Census
2001 has given India a wake-up call. A Hindu
majority in every region of the country is an
implicit guarantee of its integrity,
civilisational vitality and economic prosperity.
It is a tragedy; India has no uniform civil code.
In the absence of which some minority groups are
given the privileges of democratic, modern,
permissiveness, even as they enjoy the
protections of outdated religious diktats. In
such a situation all efforts of the state to have
an enlightened population policy are defeated.
The changing religious profile of Indian
population has a strong impact on the future of
India. And it continues to be amongst the major
determinants of strife."
APPARENTLY, the BJP and its ideological allies
have a short memory. The BJP-led National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was in power
when the National Population Policy (NPP) was
approved by Parliament in 2000. The NPP embodied
the spirit of the International Conference on
Population and Development held in Cairo, 1994,
which laid stress on the slogan "development is
the best pill". India became a signatory to the
Cairo declaration and it was assumed that any
population policy would be in consonance with the
basic principles enshrined therein - the
pursuance of population policies that are
non-coercive and not based on any disincentives
and incentives. The NPP, among other things,
pledged to improve social indicators of women's
development such as literacy, access to health
and medical services and address unmet
contraceptive needs. A National Population
Commission was set up under the chairmanship of
the Prime Minister with a corpus of Rs.100 crores
to suggest ways to implement the policy. The NPP
cautioned correctly that while a two-child norm
was desirable, it should not be achieved by
resorting to either coercion or by using
incentives and disincentives.
So what explains the BJP's about-turn and the
sudden emphasis on population control and the
two-child norm? The only plausible reason is that
the use of terms such as "demographic invasion"
and the call for a national debate on population
control stem from political expediency and not
from a genuine concern for the health of the
people. In a statement criticising the BJP's
propaganda, the All India Democratic Women's
Association (AIDWA), the Delhi Science Forum and
the Sama (a group dealing with women's health
issues) pointed out that in States that had
higher indicators of social development the
population growth rate for all communities had
come down. "It was access to basic rights that
determined the family size and not religion," it
said.
Another fall-out of the controversy over the
figures has been a debate within the All India
Muslim Personal Law Board. While its
vice-president Maulana Kalbe Sadiq declared that
the Board would promote family planning, its
president Maulana Rabeh Husni Nadwi rejected the
idea and stated in Lucknow that family planning
was "un-Islamic". It is intriguing that the
socio-economic backwardness of Muslims, which has
emerged as a result of the cross-tabulated data,
has not been the focus of interest of any of
these groups. Interestingly, the BJP welcomed the
views of Maulana Sadiq on family planning.
Sughra Mehdi, vice-president of the All India
Muslim Women's Forum, has a different take on the
issue. She told Frontline that while there was
nothing "un-Islamic" about family planning, the
population problem was not that of a particular
community as such. It concerned the entire
country and nobody should be forced to adopt the
small-family norm.
But there are other concerns as well. Sahba
Farooqi, general secretary of the National
Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), expressed
apprehensions about the misuse of the Census
data. She said: "Despite the clarification by the
Census office, the BJP and others continue to
focus on some selective aspects of population
growth. While some of us can see the politics
behind the growth rate hysteria, it is very
difficult to reverse the damage done by the
Census office and the manner in which sections of
the media covered the issue." A little cynical
about the release of such data on the eve of the
Maharashtra Assembly elections, Farooqi said that
it eventually reinforced stereotypes and gave an
opportunity to conservative parties to attack the
minorities.
Moreover, history has shown how Census figures
have been manipulated. Charu Gupta, feminist
historian and Reader in History in the University
of Delhi, has documented several instances where
the Hindu Right used such data to its advantage.
In a paper titled "Censuses, Hindu Communalism,
Gender and Identity: A Historical Perspective",
she cites examples from Census Reports of
pre-Independence India to show that historically
Census data has been used not just for
enumeration but also for comparison. According to
her, in 1979, the Hindu Mahasabha brought out a
publication, "They Count Their Gains, We
Calculate Our Losses", which tried to raise a
scare about rising Muslim population by using
Census data in a distorted manner. Many of these
debates, she says, can be linked to the present
situation. With such arguments, even a religious
majority can project itself as an endangered
minority. The whole discourse of the Hindu Right
around Census is aimed at obliterating the
pluralism of identities, by provoking a fear of
the "Other" and perpetrating myths about
catastrophic decline of the Hindu population.
The BJP and its ideological partners are not
going to stop harping on inflated growth rates or
raising the bogey of minority population
explosion. The Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance government, on the other hand, while not
going into the merits of Census 2001, has
declared its intention to conduct an inquiry into
the confusion over the Muslim growth rate. This
is despite the Minister of State for Home
admitting that the confusion was the result of a
"technical aberration".
It is surprising that neither the Congress nor
the BJP has found it prudent to stress on the
strengths of the data on religions - especially
those relating to work participation, sex ratio
and literacy - and dismiss the technical
aberration.
(ii)
Indian Express - September 16, 2004
CENSUS SENSATION, PART- II
the way we indians are
An irrelevant enumeration
The concept of the Census itself is a colonial
and retrograde one designed to benefit an
imperialist master.
Shardul Chaturvedi
The debate in the media about the 'implications'
of Muslim growth is nauseating. The Parivar is
jumping with a sense of triumph. Their age-old
allegation about Muslims multiplying faster than
Hindus have been proved, by a secular agency,
under a secular government. Secular gharanas are
silent, understandably so, they have routinely
dismissed this knowledge as communal propaganda.
Now they have nowhere to look.
About thirty years after they silenced the last
rebel gun in the great revolt, the British
decided to make sense of the country they had
come to acquire. And from this curiosity, arose
the most novel and extraordinary endeavour of
human mapping: the Census. Quite understandably,
the British did not know where or how to begin,
for Indians needed to be defined, classified,
measured, numbered and put in categories. What
were these categories? Who were to devise them?
These were the daunting questions our benevolent
masters faced, and not for the first time in
their rule and certainly not for the last, they
settled for the easiest and the most damaging
answer.
They summoned a bunch of Maulvis and Brahmins to
Calcutta, sat them down, and settled once and for
all, the fundamental definitions of a Hindu and a
Muslim. Maulvisque and Brahmanical perspectives -
parochial, textual, and most certainly very
communal - gave the British their basic
understanding of Islam and Hinduism. We were
defined hence by our most fundamentalist
representatives; men who often knew little beyond
their Arabic and Sanskrit texts and had very
little connections with the actual
anthropological realities of India. And with such
categories in hand, British officers jumped into
the Indian leviathan, numbering and categorising
people, deciding their races, observing their
noses, measuring their jaw structures,
categorising them as Moslems, Hindoos, Parsees,
Sikhs, martial, effeminate, brave, treacherous,
criminal, thugs, genteel.
More often than not, Indian realities did not fit
into the categories given to the British by
Indian 'representatives'. It was tough to decide
whether Punjabi Rajput Muslims in what is now
Pakistan, were culturally Muslims, Rajputs or
Punjabi. But the thumb rule was: when people did
not fall into categories, categories were clamped
on to them. This was the great Census of 1881,
which rather than generating identities from
Indians, imposed them on the people, often
herding them into categories they themselves did
not comprehend. But soon, informed of who they
were, and how much in numbers, of what race, how
brave, how respectable, and the rest, Indians
quickly internalised the knowledge, and started
believing, behaving, demanding, combining and
aspiring according to their newly found
categories.
Rajputs 'realised' that they were warriors, Sikhs
- martial, Brahmins - intellectuals, Mewatis -
Muslims, Tamils - Dravidians, Punjabis - Aryans
and Muslims - a new category - minority. From
that day we can safely date Muslim distrust in
number politics and in democracy, and the Hindu
confidence in it.
The Census of 1881 is widely seen as an event of
huge consequence in Indian self-image and
identity. Unsurprisingly, it marks the beginning
of the politics of identity - of communalism,
casteism, and racism of the Aryan-Dravidian type.
Besides, most Indians, when they learnt that they
were not 'adequately' something, became more
desperate to mimic the prototype. Categories were
hardened, genealogies purified, languages
codified and accents chastened. And the Census, a
complete colonial artefact in methodology and
intent, continues to replicate itself in our
times, provoking similar responses, fears and
demands.
Indians who follow Islam continue to be seen as
''Muslims'' - an almost homogenous monolithic
block, and when we are informed that there is
something called the Muslim growth rate, we
believe in it, though it would be fairly obvious
to an even casual observer that Muslims and
Hindus of the same class grow at the same rate.
Muslims grow faster because more Indian Muslims
belong to the lower classes than Indian Hindus
and if Muslims were compared to the Hindus of the
corresponding classes, the similarity would be
striking. But then our Census sees people in
terms of their religion, not class, which could
be another, perhaps fairer method of
understanding people, because members of the same
class show social and cultural similarities,
which very often members of the same community do
not. Most upper classes, for instance, show a
decline in the rate of reproduction, irrespective
of religion.
Except the Jains, who have startled all by their
alarming rate of growth, and given that most
Jains in India are not particularly poor, there
needs to be serious examination of their growth
rate. And I am alarmed, not because they
constitute any threat to India, but over the
simple issue of population explosion. In the
similar way I am disappointed that lower and
lower middle-class Muslims have not taken to
family planning. Addressing such an issue
requires complex and sensitive responses,
certainly more sensitive than seeing Muslim
growth as a threat to the country.
The threat logic is confusing. Venkaiah Naidu
wants us to believe that if Muslims continue to
grow at the current rate, they would soon
imbalance the demographic equilibrium and
threaten national security. How? By simply
overtaking Hindus in numbers? That might,
hypothetically, change the cultural idiom of the
nation state, but why and how would that threaten
national security?
The writer is a history scholar who completed his
research from Oxford University.
(iii)
Mid Day September 12, 2004
http://www.mid-day.com/news/nation/2004/september/92229.htm
Indian census and sensibilities
By: Shardul Chaturvedi
Perhaps, it should not affect me. Not after
Bombay and Gujarat. Blood has not been spilled,
mosques have not been attacked and most Indians,
Muslims or otherwise, shall go untouched by the
nauseating debates in the media about the
'implications' of Muslim growth.
And yet, for all my efforts, I hang my head in
shame. The Parivar is jumping with a sense of
triumph. Their age-old allegation about Muslims
multiplying faster than Hindus has been proved by
a secular agency, under a secular government.
Secular gharanas are silent, understandably so;
they have routinely dismissed this knowledge as
communal propaganda.
Now they have nowhere to look. Nor do I, though I
share neither the triumph of the Parivar nor the
embarrassment of the gharanas.
Yet, I sulk in shame and helplessness that some
citizens of my secular country have to listen to
debates about whether their 'disproportionate'
growth rate is a threat to their own country or
not. Of course, most participants in the debates
are saying it is not.
Muslims are still very few compared to the
Hindus.Kashmir was not included in the last
census, so the statistic means nothing.
The explosion is more in Bimaru states; Muslim
population spurt is hence nothing more than an
indication of their underdevelopment.
More secular rebuttals are yet to emerge. When
they do, I am sure they would match communal
propaganda in intellectual vacuity.
About thirty years after they silenced the last
rebel gun in the great revolt, the British
decided to make sense of the country they had
come to acquire. And from this curiosity - much
anthropological as political - the most novel and
extraordinary endeavour of human mapping: the
Census.
Quite understandably, the British did not know
where or how to begin, for Indians needed to be
defined, classified, measured, numbered and put
in categories.
What were these categories? Who were to devise
them? These were the daunting questions our
benevolent masters faced and not for the first
time in their rule, and certainly not for the
last, they settled for the easiest and the most
damaging answer.
They summoned a bunch of Maulavis and Brahmins to
Calcutta, sat them down and settled once and for
all the fundamental definitions of a Hindu and a
Muslim.
Maulvisque and Brahmanical perspectives -
parochial, textual, and most certainly very
communal - gave the British their basic
understanding of Islam and Hinduism. We were
defined hence by our most fundamentalist
representatives; men who often knew little beyond
their Arabic and
Sanskrit texts and had very little connections
with the actual anthropological realities of
India. And with such categories in hand, British
officers jumped into the Indian leviathan,
numbering and categorising people, deciding their
races, observing their noses, measuring their jaw
structures, categorising them as Moslems,
Hindoos, Parsees, Sikhs, martial, effeminate,
brave, treacherous, criminal, thugs, genteel.
More often than not, Indian realities did not fit
into the categories given to the British by
Indian 'representatives'. It was tough to decide
whether Punjabi Rajput Muslims, in what is now
Pakistan, were culturally Muslims, Rajputs or
Punjabi. But the thumb rule was - when people did
not fall into categories, categories were clamped
on to them.
This was the great census of 1881, which, rather
than generating identities from Indians, imposed
them on the people, often herding them into
categories they themselves did not comprehend.
But soon, informed of who they were, and how much
in numbers, of what race, how brave, how
respectable and the rest, Indians quickly
internalised the knowledge and started believing,
behaving, demanding, combining and aspiring
according to their newly found categories.
Rajputs 'realised' that they were warriors, Sikhs
martial, Brahmins - intellectuals, Mewatis -
Muslims, Tamils - Dravidians, Punjabis - Aryans
and Muslims - a new category - minority. From
that day, we can safely date Muslim distrust in
number politics and in democracy, and the Hindu
confidence in it.
The census of 1881 is widely seen as an event of
huge consequence in Indian self-image and
identity. Unsurprisingly, it marks the beginning
of the politics of identity - of communalism,
casteism and racism of the Aryan-Dravidian type.
Besides, most Indians, when they learnt that they
were not 'adequately' something, became more
desperate to mimic the prototype.
Categories were hardened, genealogies purified,
languages codified and accents chastened.
And the census, a complete colonial artifact in
methodology and intent, continues to replicate
itself in our times, provoking similar responses,
fears and demands.
Indians who follow Islam continue to be seen as
'Muslims' - an almost homogenous, monolithic
block. When we are informed that there is
something called the Muslim growth rate, we
believe in it, though it would be fairly obvious
to an even casual observer that Muslims and
Hindus of the same class grow at the same rate.
Muslims grow faster because more Indian Muslims
belong to the lower classes than Indian Hindus
and if Muslims were compared to the Hindus of the
corresponding classes, the similarity would be
striking.
But then our census sees people in term of their
religion, not class, which could be another,
perhaps fairer method of understanding people,
because members of the same class show social and
cultural similarities, which very often members
of the same community do not. Most upper classes,
for instance, show a decline in the rate of
reproduction, irrespective of religion.
Except the Jains, who have startled all by their
alarming rate of growth. Given that most Jains in
India are not particularly poor, there needs to
be a serious examination of their growth rate.
And I am alarmed, not because they constitute any
threat to India, but over the simple issue of
population explosion, in the similar way I am
disappointed that lower and lower middle-class
Muslims have not taken to family planning.
I am not negating that the reasons could be both
in general ignorance and in religious prejudices
and inhibitions; any numbers of liberal maulavis
or Muslim intellectuals screaming from the
pulpits or from television channels that Islam
does not forbid non-reproductive sex does not
negate the latter. Addressing such an issue
requires complex and sensitive responses,
certainly more sensitive than seeing Muslim
growth as a threat to the country.
And finally, I am confused about the threat logic.
Mr Naidu wants us to believe that if Muslims
continue to grow on the current rate, they would
soon unbalance the demographic equilibrium and
threaten national security.
How? By simply overtaking Hindus in numbers? That
might, hypothetically, change the cultural idiom
of the nation state, make it look more Muslim.
But why and how would that threaten national
security? Unless of course, Hindus, minorities
then, decide to threaten the Muslim nation state.
That all this might happen when Delhi-ites are
buying farmhouses on Mars is a different thing.
Besides, if Muslims decide to be a threat to the
country, they don't really have to grow
spectacularly for that.
Thirteen million - current population - is threat enough, Mr Naidu.
The 2004 census showed:
*that Muslims now account for about 13.4 per cent
of India's population, up from 11.4 per cent in
1981, including Kashmir.
*that the proportion of Hindus has fallen to 80.5
per cent from 82.6 per cent during the same time
period.
*Christians were the third largest religious
group with 24 million people, while Sikhs
accounted for 19 million.
*that the Parsi community's population dwindled
to just under 70,000 people, from about 76,000 a
decade earlier.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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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