SACW #1 | 4 Nov 2004

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire #1  |  4 November,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[1] US Elections:  The Election of Homophobia and Misogyny (Vijay Prashad)
[2] Politics, elections and God (Razi Azmi)
[3] Bangladesh:  Ahmadiyyas ask govt to protect 
mosques from bigots' capture (The Daily Star)
[4] Kashmir:  Pass the pipe around (Balraj Puri)
[5] India's model: faith, secularism and democracy (Rajeev Bhargava)
[6]  Upcoming events :
- SANSAD 12th anniversary event  - keynote by 
Harsh Mander (Vancouver, 6 November 2004)
- Fourth Indian Diaspora Film Festival (New York, Nov 4-7, 2004)


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

[1]

SAMAR Issue 18
www.samarmagazine.org

  THE ELECTION OF HOMOPHOBIA AND MISOGYNY
  It is time to confront theocratic bigotry head on.

  By Vijay Prashad

  Four years ago, Bush's Brain Karl Rove swore 
that he would not rest until the four million 
Evangelicals who did not vote then would turn out 
yesterday. And they did. They came in droves. 
They told those who did the exit polls that the 
issue that brought them to the franchise was not 
their own unemployment or under employment, or 
even the loss of their family members in a war of 
choice. They came to vote for "moral values."

After Rove told participants at an American 
Enterprise Institute seminar in 2001 that the 
goal of the Bush re-election campaign would be to 
make sure that all 19 million Evangelical 
Christians voted, his team hired Ralph Reed to 
take charge of the effort. Reed, the veteran of 
the Christian Coalition, mobilized his contacts 
and his good looks and went after the withheld 
votes.

The effort began to pay off by the summer of 2004 
when the National Association of Evangelicals 
released a report, For the Health of the Nation: 
An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility. 
"Because Jesus is Lord over every aspect of 
life," the report argued, Evangelicals should 
take an interest in public policy and vote to 
enforce their "values" over the polity. There are 
two sections of the document that are helpful 
guides to "moral values": (1) "Christian citizens 
of the United States must keep their eyes open to 
the potentially self-destructive tendencies of 
our society and our governmenta... We work to 
nurture family life and protect children," and 
(2) "We work to protect the sanctity of human 
life and to safeguard its nature." In other 
words, the report highlighted the twin "moral 
values" of anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion, 
of the preservation marriage as a heterosexual 
institution and of the prevention of women to 
determine the fate of their bodies.

Bush ran an election campaign that appealed to 
this definition of "values." The fear of gay 
marriage and of abortion trumped all other 
issues, even a ransom-sized deficit and a 
murderous war. Some of this should have been 
predictable. The Pew Center for Religion and 
Public Life released a poll in August 2004 that 
showed 64% of those asked clearly saying that 
"moral values" is their most important issue. 
Blinded by the enormity of the Iraq lies and the 
deficit, progressives and liberals could not see 
how significant this "moral value" problem would 
be. We took comfort in the aggregate data that 
shows how a large percentage of the population is 
actually not averse to abortion and knows someone 
who is gay or lesbian. But the aggregate poll 
might have been weighted to the coasts, and not 
to Kansas.

The Faith-Based initiatives, the ban on 
"partial-birth" abortions, the position against 
gay marriage, the refusal to fund stem-cell 
research, the "crusade" against Islam and Bush's 
personal story of transformation and forgiveness 
appealed to a population that is piously 
fundamentalist. Without meaningful work, with 
relatives and friends on the battlefield, with 
more and more corporations in domination over 
their lives, people who turn to Bush and to 
Evangelicalism do so for stability and order. As 
everything falls apart, belief provides 
organizations and institutions, and ideological 
stability. Religious organization offers the soul 
of soulless conditions.

Progressives are loath to offer a frontal 
criticism of the theocracy that has overtaken the 
South and the Midwest -- where under the command 
of tolerance we have to endure the intolerance 
toward women and their bodies, toward gays and 
lesbians, towards anyone who does not fit the 
compass of the "moral values" mass-produced by 
the established churches. It is time to throw off 
our forbearance and open a direct debate on the 
suppression of rational argument in favor of 
theocratic bigotry.

Homophobia elected Bush.
Misogyny elected Bush.
Unreason elected Bush.

Vijay Prashad is Director of International 
Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. His 
most recent books are Fat Cats and Running Dogs: 
The Enron Stage of Capitalism and Keeping Up with 
the Dow Joneses: Debt, Prison, Workfare.

______


[2]

Daily Times
November 4, 2004

POLITICS, ELECTIONS AND GOD
by Razi Azmi

Religion and politics make for a very lethal 
combination, not just for others but also for the 
very society in which this occurs. Pakistanis 
have witnessed its malignant influence for many 
years. Now, the Israeli 'settlers' -- numbering 
no more than two hundred thousand out of a total 
Jewish population of five million -- are holding 
society and state by the throat, claiming a 
biblical prerogative. Territorial expansionism 
directly stoked by religious conviction is now 
out to devour its own mentor, Prime Minister 
Ariel Sharon.
Opposition leader Shimon Peres fears that 
radicals might try to kill Mr Sharon, just as the 
then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was 
assassinated in 1995 by a young Israeli opposed 
to an interim peace agreement with the 
Palestinians. Police have reported numerous death 
threats against Mr Sharon, once a champion of the 
settler movement and now denounced by settler 
supporters as a traitor and Nazi collaborator.
Orthodox Jews refer to the occupied territories 
by the biblical name of Judea and Samara. Many 
have forsaken comfortable and secure lives in 
Western countries to live there, encircled, 
despised and threatened by the surrounding 
Palestinian population. Although a vast majority 
of Israelis support the partial pullout proposed 
by Sharon, settlers and their allies describe it 
as a forcible expulsion of Jews from areas they 
see as part of their biblical birthright.
Prominent rabbis have called on religiously 
observant soldiers to defy orders to evacuate the 
settlements, saying that carrying out such 
commands would violate Jewish law. Army chief of 
staff Lieutenant-General Moshe Yaalon said such 
resistance "endangers us as an army, as a society 
and as a state".
In the United States, God appears to have joined 
Bush's election campaign, in violation of the 
American constitution. [The article was written 
before election results became available.] "God 
is out there, actively campaigning for President 
Bush", said Beverly Ryan, a retired legal 
secretary and born-again Christian. Referring to 
the military invasion of Iraq, he added: "George 
Bush did what God wanted him to do. Who cares 
what the rest of the world thinks?" Indeed, with 
God on his side, why should Bush care about 
anything at all!
Whatever his personal religious convictions, by 
invoking religious symbolism to win the votes of 
the 40 million Americans who consider themselves 
evangelical Christians, George Bush has set a 
precedent that is full of perils and betrays a 
total disregard for the lessons of history. Barry 
Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister and the 
executive director of the Americans United for 
the Separation of Church and State, said: "It is, 
I think, extremely dangerous for people to 
believe that God is a Republican or a Democrat or 
a Naderite or even a Libertarian."
In last year's Malaysian elections, Nik Aziz, the 
spiritual leader of the Islamist PAS Party, 
didn't beat about the bush. He declared that 
those who would vote for his party would go to 
heaven and those who did not were destined for 
hell. In the event, it is a pity that relatively 
few Malaysians chose to book a bed in paradise by 
voting for his party. As Mr Aziz has had the 
benefit of higher studies in Islam in Pakistan, 
it is no surprise that he arrogated to himself 
the right to distribute one-way tickets to heaven 
and hell.
Pakistanis may be falling head over heels trying 
to go to other countries for a good education, 
but their country is a Harvard of sorts for the 
Islamists of the world. Name any spiritual, 
political or jihadist leader of any Islamist 
movement anywhere in the world, from the 
Indonesian Hambali to the Jordanian Zarqawi, from 
the Afghan Mullah Jalaludin Haqani to the 
above-mentioned Malaysian Nik Aziz, and the 
chances are that they have done their 
apprenticeship or perfected their religious 
education in Pakistan.
Maulana Samiul Haque, principal of the Darul 
Uloom Haqqania at Akora Khattak, also referred to 
as the University of Jihad, has also issued his 
fatwa on the American elections. Needless to say, 
he declares it to be a religious obligation of 
American Muslims to vote against George Bush. The 
former prime minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir 
Mohamed, who had earlier denounced Nik Aziz for 
invoking religion to win votes in Malaysia, has 
gone one step further, telling American Muslims 
in writing that voting against Bush will be "an 
act of ibadah," no less.
Modern and contemporary history is replete with 
instances of rift, violence and bloodshed when 
state and politics are infused with religion. 
Western and central Europe, now an island of 
peace, stability, progress and prosperity in a 
sea of instability, poverty and violence, was a 
theatre for war and bloodshed in the name of 
religion only a few centuries ago. Heretics were 
burnt alive and battles raged to preserve 
religious purity. It is due to this historical 
experience that Europe is now averse to mixing 
religion and politics and so tolerant of 
religious differences as to be a magnet for those 
fleeing religious persecution in other countries.
In India, fanatical Hindus destroyed a mosque to 
build a temple to their God Ram, unleashing such 
a torrent of discord and violence for the sake of 
religion as to shake the very foundations of the 
country. Among its immediate results has been a 
pogrom against Muslims in the state of Gujrat 
carried out with the abetment of its Hindu 
extremist chief minister. Its long-term results 
are dreadful even to contemplate.
Following the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 
1989, the various Mujahideen factions in 
Afghanistan fought a civil war which, besides 
causing indescribable suffering to the Afghan 
people, reduced Kabul to rubble. The Taliban 
emerged from the debris promising peace and 
security, but instead delivered more misery in 
the name of religion. For over ten years between 
then and the American military intervention in 
2001, it was a war of all against all, with every 
protagonist denouncing his adversary as the 
"enemy of Allah". Those who decry American 
intervention now, complained then about American 
apathy.
Neighbouring Iran, under the tight grip of the 
Ayatollahs, is a volcano waiting to erupt. A 
major producer and exporter of oil and gas, its 
economy is struggling and society fraught with 
tensions. The elected president, Mohammad 
Khatami, exercises less authority than the mayor 
of a large Western city. The courts, the police 
and the army are controlled by a self-appointed 
Council of Guardians, an un-elected group of 
mullahs.
Saudi Arabia, which officially makes no 
distinction between religion and government, is 
seething with discontent despite its immense oil 
wealth. One recalls that, in an act of rebellion 
that has never been fully explained, hundreds of 
disgruntled Saudis went so far as to seize the 
Holy Kaaba in 1979. It took several days and a 
commando operation for the authorities to regain 
control of Islam's holiest shrine.
Muslims are yet to learn the lesson that 
Europeans learnt long ago, namely, that religion 
and politics don't mix well. Since the so-called 
Islamisation carried out under Zia ul Haq, 
Pakistan has steadily gone down the road of 
sectarian strife and violence. Daily Khabrain of 
October 30 carries a photo that speaks volumes 
about the state of the nation. It shows two women 
armed with Kalashnikov rifles standing guard, 
while men in their hundreds offer Friday prayers. 
Pass it off with a shrug of the shoulder; blame 
it on our enemies, if you will; but to ignore the 
message embedded in this image is to invite even 
greater disasters.
The author, a former academic with a doctorate in 
modern history, is now a freelance writer and 
columnist

______


[3]

The Daily Star
November 04, 2004

Ahmadiyyas ask govt to protect mosques from bigots' capture

Staff Correspondent

Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, Bangladesh (AMJB) 
yesterday appealed to the government to protect 
its mosques and complexes across the country, as 
religious bigots threatened to capture three 
mosques in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Brahmanbaria 
tomorrow.

It also urged the government to free four of 
their mosques in Brahmanbaria from anti-Ahmadiyya 
captors.

The AMJB leaders reiterated their demand of 
rescinding a ban on the Ahmadiyya publications, 
which they said, encouraged the bigots to mount 
torture on the Ahmadiyya community across the 
country.

"Return us the mosques we built with our 
hard-earned money and let us practice our 
religion in peace," Abdul Awal Khan Chowdhury, 
Ahmadiyya missionary, pleaded at a press 
conference in Dhaka yesterday.

"We've already gone through a lot of torture, 
please stop it now," said the Ahmadiyya leader 
and alleged that two constituents of the ruling 
coalition are patronising and taking active part 
in the persecution of the Ahmadiyyas.

The AMJB leaders pointed out that they cannot 
refute the bigots' propaganda and false 
accusations against the Ahmadiyyas because of the 
ban on their publications.

International Khatme Nabuwat Movement, one of the 
several anti-Ahmadiyya groups, has announced to 
capture Ahmadiyya mosque in Tejgaon's Nakhalpara 
after the Juma prayers today.

Operatives of International Tahaffuz-e-Khatme 
Nabuwat Committee Bangladesh, who razed a mosque, 
vandalised houses of and injured 11 Ahmadiyyas at 
Bhadughar in Brahmanbaria last Friday, threatened 
to burn the Ahmadiyyas should they gather to say 
their prayers at the mosque tomorrow.

Fanatics of Khatme Nabuwat Committee Bangladesh 
and Aamra Dhakabashi, who failed to capture 
Narayanganj Missionpara Ahmadiyya Mosque in the 
wake of strong police watch and civil society 
resistance on October 8, have been learnt to have 
prepared to make another attempt on either 
tomorrow or last Friday of Ramadan.

Encouraged by their success in pulling down 
signboards of three Ahmadiyya mosques in 
Chittagong, Khulna and Patuakhali, the 
anti-Ahmadiyya zealots planned to hang news 
signboards at Nakhalpara, Narayanganj and 
Brahmanbaria mosque, branding the mosques as 
'Kadiani (Ahmadiyya) Place of Worship'. They 
cautioned people against getting deceived by 
saying prayers there.

Hailing from Brahmanbaria since 1912, the 
Ahmadiyyas follow the same rituals as the Sunnis, 
apart from their belief that Imam Mahdi, the last 
messenger of Prophet Mohammed, has already 
arrived to uphold Islam as it was preached 1400 
years ago. The Sunnis believe Mahdi has not 
arrived as yet.

The anti-Ahmadiyya capmpaign gathered momentum 
across the country after mid-2003 with an attempt 
to capture Nakhalpara mosque on November 20 last 
year and the Islami Oikya Jote (Islamic Alliance) 
of ruling coalition government is alleged to be 
tacitly supporting it.



______


[4]

Hindustan Times,
November 3, 2004

PASS THE PIPE AROUND
Balraj Puri

Scholars of academic and research institutions of 
countries which have global concerns are engaged 
in the study of various aspects of the Kashmir 
problem. Such intellectual exercises and policy 
prescriptions of the experts can add to the 
confusion on the subject if they do not take 
adequate notice of some ground realities. Which 
bear recapitulation and emphasis even if some 
experts have done so.

The first and foremost is the bewildering 
diversity of the state where multiple identities 
overlap and cut across one another. The second is 
the complexity of inter-relationship between its 
internal and external as also between the 
long-term and day-to-day problems.

Ideally, solution of the Kashmir problem should 
satisfy India, Pakistan and the people of the 
state, though the third party has not been 
mentioned in the current dialogue between India 
and Pakistan. However, despite unusual cordiality 
between the peoples of the two countries and 
their governments and flexibility in their 
approach, no common ground is visible between the 
minimalist positions of the two governments and 
their official and non-official interlocutors. 
Nor is there any consensus among various 
political groups and ethnic communities within 
the state about its final status. Ideally again, 
wishes and interests of the people of the state 
should matter. But would a majoritarian view 
expressed at a particular point of time be called 
democratic and be binding on the future 
generations?

The popular mood in J&K has not been constant. 
There is much evidence from Pakistan sources, 
based on admissions of its leaders, that from 
1947 to 1953, it avoided plebiscite. In a meeting 
between the governors general of India and 
Pakistan on Nov. 1, 1947, Mohammad Ali Jinnah 
rejected Louis Mountbatten's offer of a 
plebiscite in Kashmir as "redundant and 
undesirable".

Alistair Lamb, who did much scholarly work to 
champion the Pakistan case, gives the reasons for 
Pakistan's opposition to plebiscite. In his book, 
Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, he writes, "When the 
memory of horrors of tribal invasion was fresh in 
the minds of the local population and the 
prestige of Sheikh Abdullah at its height, 
thoughtful Pakistani leaders were not convinced 
that the vote would go in their favour." He adds, 
"Had Pakistan lost, Azad Kashmir would have 
disappeared into  Sheikh Abdullah's empire." 
Thus, there is no sanctity about a particular 
date when popular opinion should decide their 
fate irreversibly. Nor has popular opinion in 
different regions of the state been uniform.

Further, as majoritarianism is a negation of 
democracy, many experts have argued about 
parcelling the state according to overwhelming 
popular and stable opinion. Various forms of 
division have been mooted by some think-tanks and 
official and non-official sources of America, in 
particular.

The snag in such proposals is that none of them 
divides the state into homogeneous entities, for 
various types of identities cut across one 
another. It is possible that if passions are 
sufficiently aroused, the Muslims of the state 
may vote together. But as was evident from the 
example of Bangladesh, when passions cool down, 
their cultural and regional identities reassert 
themselves. Apart from the risk of repetition of 
the communal holocaust of 1947 in the event of a 
communal division of the state, the worst 
sufferers would be Muslims of the Kashmir Valley. 
They genuinely pride in being the oldest 
civilisation of the subcontinent dating back to 
5,000 years. This unique civilisational 
experiment would, thus, come to an end if the 
state is divided on communal lines.

Homogeneity isn't always a vir-tue. It kills 
dissent, the most vital test of a democracy, and 
most often leads to authoritarianism. Diversity, 
on the other hand, is being increasingly 
recognised as the most celebrated value. The real 
misfortune of J&K is that instead of recognising 
the diversities and reconciling their aspirations 
and interests, a uniform,  over-centralised 
regime has been imposed upon it, which is the 
major source of tensions in the state and 
complications in the J&K problem.

If diversity is an asset worth preserving and 
division is risky, the paramount need is to 
consider measures for evolving a harmonious and 
composite personality of the state. That alone 
can aspire for a stable and lasting status. It's 
true that outside influences pull ethnic or 
regional identities in divergent directions. But 
it's equally true that divergence within the 
state makes its component parts susceptible to 
outside influences.

For instance, the Hindu Sabha of Jammu, which 
supported the Maharaja's aspiration to make the 
state independent in 1947 under the new garb of a 
Praja Parishad, started an agitation for 'full 
accession to India' and abrogation of Article 370 
of the Indian Constitution. Some elements of the 
same party, the RSS, in particular, conducted a 
campaign for a separate Jammu state for the same 
purpose. But the BJP-RSS parivar was routed in 
the 2002 assembly poll  when the Congress 
projected Ghulam Nabi Azad, a Jammu Muslim leader 
who also believed in the unity of the state, as 
the next chief minister. Thus, the urges of the 
people of the region could be channeled through 
different outlets.

Likewise, much of the alienation of Kashmiri 
Muslims, who had warmly welcomed the Indian army 
earlier in 1947, was due to the provocation 
provided by Jammu's protests. The Ladakhi 
Buddhists' demand for a Union territory status, 
too, is a result of regional discontent. Instead 
of dealing with these problems in an ad hoc 
manner or blaming them on external factors, a 
radical overhaul of the system is required. 
Personally, I have been campaigning for a federal 
and decentralised set-up.

My drafts on the subject can be modified or 
rejected. But the need for a system that ensures 
an equitable sense of participation from every 
community and region cannot be denied. It is the 
job not only of the mainstream parties but also 
of those who want an entirely different status 
for the state. Whether they want azadi or 
autonomy, they must have a blueprint of how that 
azadi or autonomy would be shared with 
communities and individuals. There are many 
countries which attained independence from 
foreign rule, but their citizens aren't free and 
are ruled by local tyrants. If Mahatma Gandhi 
could write Hind Swaraj, his concept of 
independent India, in 1907, 40 years before the 
country became free, the leaders of the azadi 
movement in Kashmir also owe it to its people to 
present before them a broad picture of what such 
a Kashmir would be.

The state's internal system has to be changed 
regardless of its external relations or status. 
For good governance, democratic freedom and 
harmony within the state are the primary needs of 
its people that can't be deferred till the 'final 
solution of the Kashmir problem'. In fact, the 
final solution would become much easier if these 
primary needs are satisfied. For, that is a 
pre-condition for a dialogue between the peoples 
of the state about their fate, followed by 
dialogue across the LoC, and eventually with 
governments of the two countries. Whatever the 
final outcome, every step in this direction would 
contribute to better mutual understanding and 
goodwill which, in itself, is a big gain.

If, meanwhile, the current cordial relations 
between the peoples and governments of India and 
Pakistan lead to some sort of South Asian 
identity, problems like Kashmir would be cut to 
size, matters of border would become less 
relevant, and it would not matter much which 
country one belongs to.

The writer is a Jammu-based political activist

______



[5]  [India's tattered Laisse-Faire Secularism 
can hardly be presented as an example or a model 
to the world. Responses and reactions to the 
below paper would be welcome --SACW ]

o o o

www.opendemocracy.net  |  3 - 11 - 2004

INDIA'S MODEL: FAITH, SECULARISM AND DEMOCRACY
  Rajeev Bhargava


Western variants of multiculturalism and 
secularism are being challenged by religious 
demands for public recognition of faith. Instead 
of reinventing the wheel, the world should learn 
from India, says Rajeev Bhargava.


The reality of the "multicultural", describing 
the mere presence of many cultures within a 
society, has been present in India for several 
millennia. But "multiculturalism" is different: 
it is a special kind of relationship adopted by 
the state towards different cultural communities 
that fall within its sovereignty. In addition, it 
is also the official, doctrinal articulation of 
this stance, and, naturally, a term for theories 
of this doctrine, propounded and argued over, by 
academics and journalists.

While India might be invoked descriptively in 
treatments of the epiphenomena of multiculture, 
it is rarely mentioned in most theoretical 
discussions of multiculturalism. This is 
testimony to the narrowness and parochialism of 
the dominant public cultures of the west, which 
still assumes that it houses the future, not the 
past.

To deepen our understanding of multiculturalism, 
to understand its internal tensions and foresee 
its problems - and accordingly to refine and 
focus public policies - the world needs to look 
to and learn from India.

The emergence of an "ism"

Will Kymlicka, one of the foremost scholars of 
the subject, says that "multiculturalism" as a 
unique experiment started in Canada in 1971, and 
that it was followed in other countries such as 
Australia.

In a sense he is correct: as official doctrine 
and theory, it certainly began life in Canada, 
and was later adopted in Australia, the United 
States and Britain.

The reason why, as a doctrine, multiculturalism 
appears to have originated where it did was 
twofold. First, Canada was already a 
multinational state, one characterised by 
French-speaking Quebec's refusal to "integrate" 
with its English-speaking neighbours on the model 
of the United States. Second, Canada was, like 
the US, a country of immigration.

Canadian governments, both fighting to avoid the 
break-up of their country and unable to insist 
that newcomers accept "melting-pot" integration 
into a powerful US-style nationality, embraced a 
policy that recognised the right of all its 
citizens to demand distinct kinds of identities. 
The unity of the country thus came to depend upon 
granting a constitutional right of difference to 
its own people within the framework of their 
nation-state. On this social and constitutional 
experience, which Canada and its western partners 
saw as unique, was built the doctrine of 
multiculturalism.

Canada, as well as the US and Australia, were 
formed by immigration, and came as a result to 
understand it - in their bones, as it were - as a 
permanent fact of life. Most other countries, by 
contrast, experienced it as an exception, an 
intrusion, a crisis in their composition.

But migration has gradually become a permanent 
fact of life everywhere, making the view of 
immigration as exceptional or problematic harder 
to sustain. The immense imbalances of wealth and 
population on a world scale, coupled with global 
technologies and transports, render mass 
immigration "normal".

The urbanisation of humankind is accelerating; 
hundreds of millions of people are moving from 
rural areas to the cities, and many of these 
journeys are leading people to cross and settle 
beyond national borders. In almost every country, 
new minorities and diasporas - often intensely 
self-conscious and interconnected thanks to 
information technology - are becoming normal 
components of the population. It appears that 
nothing can stop the process of "people flow" (as 
it was innovatively described in the debate 
jointly hosted by Demos and openDemocracy).

This highlights a sense in which Will Kymlicka is 
wrong to champion Canada as the homeland of 
multiculturalism. For as official policy and 
broader normative orientation based on social 
experience, its lineage is much older. It has 
been an integral feature of public debate in 
India for more than a century. Indeed, there is 
hardly a multicultural policy known to the world 
that, in one form or another, has not been 
examined, used or discarded in India.

All societies, it might be said, are today 
becoming like India. What can they learn from it?

Indian constitutional secularism

Since 1950, when India's lengthy constitution was 
adopted, the country's official, constitutional 
discourse has attended to the range of issues and 
arguments generated by a multiply diverse 
society. They include the cultural rights of 
minorities; the funding of minority educational 
institutions; the cultural rights of indigenous 
peoples; linguistic rights; the self-government 
rights of culturally distinct groups; 
asymmetrical federalism; legal pluralism; 
affirmative action for marginalised groups.

Moreover, several concerns have long been part of 
official state policy: public holidays that 
bestow official recognition to minority 
religions; flexible dress codes; a sensitivity in 
history- and literature-teaching to the cultures 
and traditions of minorities; and government 
funding of especially significant religious 
practices.

But perhaps the most important lesson India has 
for debate over and policies towards 
"multiculturalism" is the need to rethink and 
reform another "ism"- secularism. This term, 
originally non-Indian, is now part of the 
everyday vocabulary of Indian politics and 
society in a way that others could embrace.

The introduction of secularism into a discussion 
of multiculturalism should be no surprise. 
Secularism defines itself in relation to 
religion; and always, everywhere, even when they 
are understood to be conceptually separate, 
cultures and religions remain deeply intertwined. 
This is even more so in cases where the very 
distinction between religion and culture is hard 
to draw. Is the hijab, for a Muslim, a cultural 
or a religious object? Is marriage among Muslims 
a cultural or a religious event? Is the identity 
of a Hindu or a Jew cultural or religious?

To think about multiculturalism, then, is to be 
confronted with the (public, often conflictual) 
presence of multiple religions - something that 
has been a constitutive feature of social reality 
on the subcontinent. Since secularism defines 
itself in relation to religion, it must also see 
itself in relation to multiple religions. This is 
primarily how the term secularism works on the 
subcontinent (when indeed it is allowed to do any 
work at all!).

The return of religion

This multi-religious reality of the subcontinent 
should become the starting-point for discussions 
of western secularism, which is now being 
challenged by three distinct processes.

First, it is now evident that a central aspect of 
the classic or western secularisation thesis is 
deeply mistaken. The projected privatisation of 
religion mandated by classic notions of 
modernisation has, even in western societies, 
failed to occur. Instead, two developments are 
visible: the continued public presence of 
religion, and what Jose Casanova calls the 
"de-privatisation" of religions that formerly had 
retreated from the public sphere. (Two examples 
of the latter are the militant role of 
evangelical and "born-again" Christianity in the 
United States and the global impact of the 
policies of the Roman Catholic Church.)

Second, migration from former colonies and an 
intensified globalisation has thrown together on 
western soil pre-Christian faiths, Christianity 
and Islam. The public spaces of western societies 
are reappropriated by people of one religion and 
its various denominations, and increasingly 
claimed also by people adhering to several other 
religions; the accumulative result is a deep, 
unprecedented religious diversity. As a result, 
the weak but definite public monopoly of single 
religions is being challenged by the very norms 
that govern these societies.

Third, the encounter between these multiple 
religions is not fully dialogic; rather, it 
generates mutual suspicion, distrust, hostility 
and conflict. To some extent, this too is a 
"normal" reaction to a close encounter with the 
unfamiliar; and due in part also to the different 
understandings of individual and social selves 
embodied in the divergent cumulative traditions 
of each of these religions.

But there is also something troubling about the 
exclusions that mark the self-understanding of 
religions themselves, about their inability to 
form more benign and tolerant understandings of 
those outside their fold. The bigotry on one side 
is matched on the other by a demonisation that 
relentlessly legitimises denial of the other 
religion's right to an equal space in public life.

The same point can be put another way. Different 
forms of dance or dress can have deep and abiding 
identity-significance for people, yet a classical 
liberalism that has been reshaped by the 
spectacle of the market and fashion can also 
easily incorporate them into a market-driven 
perspective. When, however, culture is organised 
by religion rather than politics, it is more 
usually accompanied by lasting forms of 
exclusion, bans and power-systems (often 
involving unaccountable rule by old men) as well 
as practices and procedures which limit freedom 
and have undemocratic consequences.

This raises the question: is western secularism 
equipped to deal with the new reality of multiple 
religions in public life or with the social 
tensions this engenders?

The problem of secularism

The dominant self-understanding of western 
secularism, somewhat encrusted into formula, is 
that it is a universal doctrine requiring the 
strict separation of church and state, religion 
and politics, for the sake of individual liberty 
and equality (including religious liberty and 
equality).

The social context that gave this 
self-understanding urgency and significance was 
the fundamental problem faced by modernising 
western societies: the tyranny, oppression and 
sectarianism of the church and the two threats to 
liberty it posed - to religious liberty conceived 
individualistically (the liberty of an individual 
to seek his own personal way to God, an 
individual's freedom of conscience), and to 
liberty more generally as (ultimately) the 
foundation of common citizenship.

To overcome this problem, modernising western 
societies needed to create or strengthen an 
alternative centre of public power completely 
separate from the church. The rigidity of the 
demand here is unmistakable - mutual exclusion (a 
wall , as Thomas Jefferson famously put it) 
between the two relevant institutions, one 
intrinsically and solely public and the other 
expected to retreat into the private domain and 
remain there. The individualist underpinnings of 
this view are fully evident.

This classic, western conception of secularism 
was designed to solve the internal problem of a 
single religion with different heresies - 
Christianity. It also appeared to rest on an 
active hostility to the public role of religion 
and an obligatory, sometimes respectful 
indifference to whatever religion does within its 
own internal, privatedomain. As long as it is 
private, the state is not meant to interfere.

It is now increasingly clear that this form of 
western secularism has persistent difficulties in 
seeking to cope with community-oriented religions 
that demand a public presence, particularly when 
they begin to multiply in society. This 
individualistic, inward-looking secularism is 
already proving vulnerable to crisis after 
crisis. The rigid response of the French 
republican state to the hijab issue, and the more 
ambiguous response of the German state to the 
demand by Turkish Muslims for the public funding 
of their educational institutions, may be only 
harbingers of clashes to come.

Which way will these western societies go? Will 
they become even more dogmatic in their 
assertions about their strict-separation 
secularism; or, in view of changed circumstances, 
will they abandon it in favour of an unashamed 
embrace of their majoritarian religious character 
founded on an official establishment? Or could 
they not work out a better form of secularism 
which addresses these new demands without giving 
up the values for which the original was devised?

Most important of all, is it not worth asking if 
such an alternative exists already?

I think it does - a conception not available as a 
doctrine or a theory but worked out in the 
subcontinent and available loosely in the best 
moments of inter-communal practice in India; in 
the country's constitution appropriately 
interpreted; and in the scattered writings of 
some of its best political actors.

The Indian model

Six features of the Indian model are striking and relevant to wider discussion.

First, multiple religions are not extras, added 
on as an afterthought but present at its 
starting-point, as part of its foundation.

Second, it is not entirely averse to the public 
character of religions. Although the state is not 
identified with a particular religion or with 
religion more generally (there is no 
establishment of religion), there is official and 
therefore public recognition granted to religious 
communities.

Third, it has a commitment to multiple values - 
liberty or equality, not conceived narrowly but 
interpreted broadly to cover the relative 
autonomy of religious communities and equality of 
status in society, as well as other more basic 
values such as peace and toleration between 
communities. This model is acutely sensitive to 
the potential within religions to sanction 
violence.

Fourth, it does not erect a wall of separation 
between state and religion. There are boundaries, 
of course, but they are porous. This allows the 
state to intervene in religions, to help or 
hinder them. This involves multiple roles: 
granting aid to educational institutions of 
religious communities on a non-preferential 
basis; or interfering in socio-religious 
institutions that deny equal dignity and status 
to members of their own religion or to those of 
others (for example, the ban on untouchability 
and the obligation to allow everyone, 
irrespective of their caste, to enter Hindu 
temples, and potentially to correct gender 
inequalities), on the basis of a more sensible 
understanding of equal concern and respect for 
all individuals and groups. In short, it 
interprets separation to mean not strict 
exclusion or strict neutrality but rather what I 
call principled distance.

Fifth, this model shows that we do not have to 
choose between active hostility or passive 
indifference, or between disrespectful hostility 
or respectful indifference. We can have the 
necessary hostility as long as there is also 
active respect: the state may intervene to 
inhibit some practices, so long as it shows 
respect for the religious community and it does 
so by publicly lending support to it in some 
other way.

Sixth, by not fixing its commitment from the 
start exclusively to individual or community 
values or marking rigid boundaries between the 
public and private, India's constitutional 
secularism allows decisions on these matters to 
be taken within the open dynamics of democratic 
politics - albeit with the basic constraints such 
as abnegation of violence and protection of basic 
human rights, including the right not to be 
disenfranchised.

A lesson in democracy

This commitment to multiple values and principled 
distance means that the state tries to balance 
different, ambiguous but equally important 
values. This makes its secular ideal more like an 
ethically sensitive, politically negotiated 
arrangement (which it really is), rather than a 
scientific doctrine conjured by ideologues and 
merely implemented by political agents.

A somewhat forced, formulaic articulation of 
Indian secularism goes something like this. The 
state must keep a principled distance from all 
public or private, individual-oriented or 
community-oriented religious institutions for the 
sake of the equally significant (and sometimes 
conflicting) values of peace, this-worldly goods, 
dignity, liberty and equality (in all its 
complicated individualistic or 
non-individualistic versions).

Some readers may find in this condensed version 
an irritatingly complicated collage and yearn for 
the elegance, economy and tidiness of western 
secularism. But, alas, no workable constitution 
will generate the geometrical beauty of a 
social-scientific theory or a chemical formula. 
The ambiguity and flexibility of the conception 
of secularism developed by India is not a 
weakness but in fact the strength of an inclusive 
and complex political ideal.

Discerning students of western secularism may now 
begin to find something familiar in this ideal. 
But then, Indian secularism has not dropped fully 
formed from the sky. It shares a history with the 
west. In part, it has learnt from and built on 
it. But is it not time to give something in 
return? What better way than to do this than by 
showing that Indian secularism is a route to 
retrieving the rich history of western secularism 
- forgotten, underemphasised, or frequently 
obscured by the formula of strict separation and 
by many of its current articulations!

For the image of western secularism I outlined 
above is just one of its variants, what can be 
called the church-state model. Another equally 
interesting version that deepens the idea of 
western secularism flows from the religious wars 
in Europe and can be called the religious-strife 
model.

Yet, in its attempt to tackle the deep diversity 
of religious traditions, and in its ethically 
sensitive flexibility, there is something 
unparalleled in the Indian experiment - something 
different from each of the two versions. If so, 
western societies can find reflected in it not 
only a compressed version of their own history 
but also a vision of their future.

But it might be objected: look at the state of 
the subcontinent! Look at India! How deeply 
divided it remains! How can success be claimed 
for the Indian version of secularism? I do not 
wish to underestimate the force of this 
objection. The secular ideal in India is in 
periodic crisis and is deeply contested. Besides, 
at the best of times, it generates as many 
problems as it solves.

But it should not be forgotten either that a 
secular state was set up in India despite the 
massacre and displacement of millions of people 
on ethno-religious grounds. It has survived in a 
continuing context in which ethnic nationalism 
remains dominant throughout the world. As 
different religious cultures claim their place in 
societies across the world, it may be India's 
development of secularism that offers the most 
peaceful, freedom-sensitive and democratic way 
forward. At any rate, why should the fate of 
ideal conceptions with trans-cultural potential 
be decided purely on the basis of what happens to 
them in their place of origin?

A final point - or rather a question. India in 
May 2004 witnessed an election in which the Hindu 
right was democratically ousted. At least part of 
the credit for this goes to the way the secular 
constitution helped transform the caste system 
from being an integral part of a sacral, 
hierarchical order to a political and associative 
formation tied to secular interests. As "lower 
castes" fight to get their share of power, wealth 
and dignity, the friction created in this 
struggle thwarts the majoritarian ambitions of 
the dominant religious group.

Will the American constitution play a similar 
role in removing the vastly more dangerous 
takeover of the state by the Christian right? Or 
have the privatising ambitions of the "wall of 
separation" model backfired, leaving Americans 
exposed to yet another term of the same devils?

______

[6]   Upcoming Events:

(i)

SANSAD completes 12 years

Twelve years of struggles for secularism, 
democracy, social justice, economic wellbeing, 
peace in the sub-continent, friendship between 
the peoples and countries of South Asia

Twelve years of defending the rights of women, 
dalits, workers, peasants, religious and other 
minorities

Twelve years of building bridges between diverse 
sections of South Asian Diaspora living in the 
Vancouver area

And twelve years of solidarity with the people of 
the world fighting colonialism, occupations, 
aggressive wars and economic domination

************
Come and join us for an evening of togetherness

To celebrate our past, to consolidate our 
present, and to resolve for our future

Saturday, November 6, 2004, 6 p.m.

India Abroad Restaurant 3075 Kingsway (one block 
east of Rupert), Vancouver [Canada]

poetry, songs, a full-course gourmet Indian dinner, and a no-host bar

Key-note Speaker: Mr. Harsh Mander from India

Harsh Mander's name should be familiar to anyone 
who has closely followed the political scene of 
India, especially after the Gujarat genocide of 
2002. As a senior IAS Officer (Civil Servant), he 
witnessed the carnage carried out with the full 
support of the state machinery. He resigned from 
his coveted post, and became an activist, a 
campaigner, for saving the democratic and secular 
fabric of the country. He is currently the 
National Director of ActionAid India. He has 
authored numerous articles and two books: Cry My 
Beloved Country (Rainbow Publishers) and Unheard 
Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives (Penguin). He 
was the recipient of M A. Thomas National Human 
Rights Award in 2002.

SOUTH ASIAN NETWORK FOR SECULARISM AND DEMOCRACY
phone: 604-420-2972, fax: 604-420-2970,
e-mail: sansad at sansad.org,
website: www.sansad.org	  

  o o o o

(ii)

IAAC presents the Fourth Indian Diaspora Film Festival - Nov 4-7, 2004
Buy tickets now: GO TO WWW.SMARTTIX.COM OR CALL 212 868 4444
Use discount code IAAC12 for $12 tickets
All programs have post-screening Q&A with filmmakers and cast. Including but
not limited to Shabana Azmi and Mira Nair. For more details visit:
www.iaac.us
_____________________________________________________________________
Thursday, November 4 - Walter Reade Theatre
7 pm BRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Gurinder Chadha.
Starring: Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Daniel Gilles,
For tickets to the Pre-screening cocktail, screening, POst-screeening Q&A
with Anupam Kher and Richard Pena call 212-529-2347. Tickets -$100, very few
remaining.
______________________________________________________________________
Friday, November 5 Courthouse Theatre
5pm. MORNING RAGA by Mahesh Dattani,
Starring: Mahesh Dattani, Shabana Azmi, Prakash Rao, Perizaad Zorabian,
Lillete Dubey

7.30pm INDIAN COWBOY by Nikhil Kamkolkar
Starring: Nikhil Kamkolkar, Sheetal Sheth, Carla Borelli, Jonathan Sale,
Deep Katdare,

9.30pm SAU JHOOTH, EK SACH by Bappaditya Roy
Starring: Mammootty, Vikram Gokhle, Lillette Dubey,
______________________________________________________________________
Friday, November 5 - Maya Deren Theatre
Shorts Prog 1: 5 PM
SANGAM, by Prashant Bhargava
BAREFEET by Sonali Gulati
SOMETHING BETWEEN HER HANDS by Sonya Shah
KARMA by Abhay Chopra
EQUATION by Anuj Majumdar

Shorts Prog 2: 7pm
OLIVIA’S PUZZLE by Jason DaSilva
THIS MOMENT by Directed/Written by Leena Pendharkar
HOMECOMING by Nikhil Jayaram
MIDNIGHT FEAST by Kristine Landon-Smith
ROOM FOR ONE by Ambika Samarthya
PASSION by Monica Aswani.
FALLEN by Sonejuhi Sinha

Documentary Prog. 1: 9.30 pm
DANCING ON MOTHER EARTH by Jim Virga
______________________________________________________________________
Saturday, November 6, Courthouse Theatre
12 noon BANDHAK by Hyder Bilgrami
Starring: Farokh Daruwala, Aasha Patel, Murtuza Sabir, Daman,Arora, Manoj
Shinde, Meenu Mangal, Ramzan Lakhani

3pm SALAAM BOMBAY by Mira Nair
Starring: Shafiq Syed, Hansa Vithal, Chanda Sharma, Nana Patekar, Aneeta
Kanwar, Raghubir Yadav

6 pm JANE AUSTEN IN MANHATTAN by Merchant-Ivory
Starring: Anne Baxter, Robert Powell, Michael Wagner, Tim Choate, John
Guerrasio, Katrina Hodiak, Kurt Johnson, Sean Young

9 pm 19 REVOLUTIONS by Sridhar Reddy
Starring: Tarun Arora, Sriya Reddy, Vishwaa, Gulshan Grover
______________________________________________________________________
Saturday, November 6, Maya Deren Theatre
Documentary Prog 2:  1pm
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER by Kenneth Eng

Documentary Prog 3: 3 pm
REINVENTING THE TALIBAN by Sharmeen Obaid/Ed Robbins

Documentary Prog 4: 6pm
DISCORDIA by Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal.

Documentary Prog 5: 9pm
ROCKSTAR AND THE MULLAH by Ruhi Hamid
GHOOM TANA by Saquib Malik
Starring: Nandita Das,Salman Ahmad and special voiceover by Naseeruddin
Shah.
______________________________________________________________________
Sunday, November 7 - Courthouse Theatre
1pm SACRIFICE, 2004 by Frankie Sooknanan
Starring: Frankie Sooknanan, DebbieAnn Pustam, Mahadeo Shivraj, Alisha
Persaud

3pm SUNDAY AFTERNOON by Amit Dutt
Starring: Sudipta Chakraborty, Bhaswar Chatterjee, Arun Mukherjee, Gita Dey,
Abir Chatterjee, Rumki Chatterjee, Mou Bhattacharya

6pm BOMB THE SYSTEM by Adam Bhala Lough
Starring: Mark Webber, Jaclyn DeSantis, Gano Grills, Jade Yorker, Al
Sapienza
________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, November 7 - Maya Deren Theatre

Shorts Prog 3: 1 pm
SCULPTURE 1 by Gitanjali Kapila
THE SEINE by Mahesh Umasankar
Starring: Mark D. Hines, Ram Padmanabhan, Michaela Greeley, David Mesloh,
Reginald Carbin

Shorts Prog. 4: 3 pm
BIOGRAPHY OF AN AMERICAN HOSTESS by Shilpa Sudhankar
Starring: Shilpa Sudhankar, Ritah Parrish, David Burnett, Judith M. Ford,
Matt Moris,
EVERYTHING by Harjant Gill
PARALLEL CINEMA by Jaideep Punjabi
Starring Devika Shahani Punjabi, Ash Chandler, Krishnan Unnikrishnan
WHOSE CHILDREN ARE THESE? by Theresa Thanjan.
Starring: Navila Ali, Mohammad Hussain, Hager Youssef
IN WHOSE NAME? by Nandini Sikand

6 pm IN THE NAME OF BUDDHA by Rajesh Takshiva
Starring: Shju, Lal, Sonia
_______________________________________________________________________

Pooja Kohli
Festival Director
Indo-American Arts Council, Inc.
The 4th Annual IAAC Film Festival: Indian Diaspora
118 East 25th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10010
Ph: 212-529-2347
Fax: 212-477-4106
Web: www.iaac.us

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

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/
SACW archive is available at:  bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

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South Asia Counter Information Project :  snipurl.com/sacip
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.