SACW | 17 June 2005
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Fri Jun 17 03:39:34 CDT 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 17 June, 2005
[1] Pakistan: Mukhtaran Mai and National Image
- Mukhtar Mai episode is shameful (edit, Daily Times)
- Prolonging the agony (edit, Dawn)
- NGOs threaten to abandon government (Mohammad Kamran)
- CSOs slam ministers' remarks about NGOs
[2] Pakistan - USA: The Madrassa Myth (Peter Bergen And Swati Pandey)
[3] India - Assam:
- The shadow of the foreigner (Sanjib Baruah)
- Assam's victims of 'religious hatred' (Subir Bhaumik)
[4] [India-Pakistan] Partition Culprit: To Each One's Own (Ram Puniyani)
[5] India:
- Jadavpur University Crackdown on Students Raises Wider Issues of
Governance (Rila Mukherjee)
- Jadavpur Agitation Update 16th June morning (Kunal Chattopadhyay)
______
[1]
Daily Times - June 16, 2005
Editorial: MUKHTAR MAI EPISODE IS SHAMEFUL
The decision by the government not to allow Mukhtar Mai, a victim of
panchayat-sanctioned gang-rape, to go to the United States at the
invitation of a group of Pakistani-American physicians and Amnesty
International is, at best, a bad miscalculation, at worst an act for
which we should all hang our heads in shame. Consider some facts.
Amnesty International invited Mukhtar Mai to New York to claim an
award. Mukhtar Mai has proven to be a fighter and, instead of living
with the burden of her trauma, has decided to do something useful for
the area to which she belongs and which still groans under medieval
tribalism. She has opened schools and taken in the children of even
those responsible for her rape. She is also making other efforts to
get the girls in the area to understand their rights and develop a
collective voice.
For all these reasons, AI invited her to New York. At that point, the
Pakistani embassy in the US apparently advised the government not to
allow her to visit New York, arguing that her exposure there - the
award ceremony, the interviews, the TV talk shows etc - would present
Pakistan in a bad light. It was an ill-conceived advice and Islamabad
should have overruled the embassy. Instead, it decided to follow
through on it. Consequently, it allowed a bail hearing at the Lahore
High Court to go through which resulted in the freeing of the accused
from detention. Upon this the government took Mukhtar Mai into
protective custody, arguing that she needed to be kept safe from the
likely revenge of the accused. It put her on the Exit Control List
also but did not openly acknowledge this. In short, the government
has followed a highly objectionable and retrogressive strategy to
prevent Mukhtar Mai from going to the US. If the idea was to secure
the country's interest, a worse policy could not have been pursued.
The news has hit international headlines and ended up doing more
damage than if she had been allowed to go and speak to the press in
the US.
Indeed, by facilitating and sponsoring her visit the government could
have earned itself much goodwill. No country in the world is free of
sordid tales of inhumanity. In the US itself, according to surveys, a
woman is raped every two minutes. But states and societies work
towards tackling these problems rather than shying away from them or
putting a lid on them. So it is with Pakistan. By supporting Mukhtar
Mai the government could have signalled to the world that its
commitment to enlightenment is not merely a gimmick but a policy that
it seriously wants to execute. As it happened, it has ended with egg
on its face. It will also have to eat humble pie soon when - not if -
Mukhtar Mai can go abroad. She was last learnt to have been taken to
the US embassy where she sought to withdraw her passport without a
visa. It was then seized by her Pakistani handlers. An hour later,
the interior minister rose in the assembly to say that the government
had restored her freedom by taking her name off the ECL. Mukhtar Mai
says the prime minister called and assured her that if she cooperated
she would be allowed to go abroad in a month's time. She had no
choice but to give in.
A great disservice has been done to Pakistan by its self-righteous
and arrogant rulers. They will have to eat humble pie sooner rather
than later. *
o o o
Dawn
June 17, 2005 | Editorial
PROLONGING THE AGONY
THE manner in which Mukhtaran Mai's case has been handled by the
government this past week is disgraceful. There is still a lot of fog
surrounding the current position which makes it difficult to
ascertain the truth. On Wednesday, the interior minister told
parliament that Mukhtaran Mai's name had been removed from the exit
control list on the instructions of the prime minister and that she
was free to travel abroad. However, our correspondent reports that
Mukhtaran Mai's passport has been seized, and she has been told that
it is being kept as a trust (amanat). Her decision not to travel
abroad on account of her mother's illness is widely seen as having
been made under duress. The government's discomfort at the publicity
Mukhtaran Mai's plight continues to receive is obvious, but it is
hard to digest the appalling lengths to which it has gone to gag her.
Government officials have callously mishandled the case with their
contradictory and, at times, dim-witted statements. They hoped to
avoid a "bad press" they believed would result if Mukhtaran Mai
travelled abroad but given the scathing international reaction to the
steps taken to prevent the trip from materializing, the country has
ended up getting a far worse press. In its lead editorial on
Wednesday, the New York Times rebukes Pakistan for thinking that
Mukhtaran Mai's visit would have maligned its image, "as if it has
not taken care of that rather ably by itself." It is also disgraceful
that the Pakistan government should be perceived as removing
Mukhtaran Mai's name from the ECL only under US pressure.
Given the bizarre twists and turns the case has taken, it is said
that tension in Mukhtaran Mai's village Meerwala is escalating.
Irrespective of the security she has been granted, she must be a
frightened person now that her alleged rapists are free again. She
says her only concern continues to be that she should be given
justice - a pursuit from which she refuses to be deflected. Given its
track record on women's rights - let us not forget how quickly Gen
Pervez Musharraf had come to defend the main accused in the Sui rape
case - it is not surprising that Mukhtaran Mai should have despaired
of official backing. The government has evoked the ire of human
rights activists previously as well for its flip-flop on women's
issues. There must be an immediate end to Mukhtaran Mai's harassment.
Her passport should be returned to her and every step taken to ensure
her freedom of movement and her security.
In the whole episode, some legislators and government functionaries
have dragged in NGOs into the debate. The derogatory references made
to NGOs by certain ministers is highly irresponsible. In the absence
of good governance, had it not been for the valuable role NGOs have
played, society would have been much worse off than it is today. Many
of the injustices in Pakistan - like the existence of private jails
in Sindh - were brought to our attention by NGOs. For state minister
of interior Shahzad Wasim to rubbish NGO activists as "people [who]
are ready to say anything for one dinner with Johnny Walker" is
thoughtless and speaks of an encrusted right-wing lobby within what
is projected as an enlightened government. The contribution of NGOs
in various fields has been invaluable and the government should be
seeking their contribution rather than alienating them.
o o o
Daily Times - June 17, 2005
NGOS THREATEN TO ABANDON GOVERNMENT
By Mohammad Kamran
ISLAMABAD: Leading non-government organisations on Thursday gave a
48-hour ultimatum to the government to direct Dr Shahzad Wasim, state
minister for interior, and Ms Nilofar Bakhtiar, adviser to prime
minister, to tender an apology for passing derogatory remarks against
NGOs in the Senate and warned of terminating their ongoing
partnership with the government.
"We will sever our partnership with the government if the two
ministers do not publicly apologise in the next 48 hours," said the
representatives of 15 leading NGOs in a joint statement to the media
here on Thursday.
The civil society organisations were reacting to the remarks by two
ministers who had strongly criticised the role and character of NGO
leaders on the Mukhtar Mai issue and maintained that NGO ladies would
do anything for "a dinner with John and Johnny Walker."
"It is astonishing that a state minister and adviser used such
un-parliamentary language against organisations striving for the
cause of humanity and lending a valuable hand to the government," the
representatives maintained.
They demanded that the controversial remarks reported in the press
should be expunged from the record of Senate proceedings.
"We strongly resent such character assassinations by representatives
of a government which is heavily donor-driven and dependent on
foreign loans and grants," Nasreen Azhar of Human Rights Commission
of Pakistan (HRCP) said. The government has been reiterating that it
could not carry out its socio-economic development programme and
projects of gender justice, poverty alleviation, without the help of
NGOs but on the other hand it has started a policy of outright
confrontation and hostility towards NGOs, she added.
Later talking to Daily Times, Farzana Bari said the government had
mishandled the Mukhtar Mai case. She claimed that it was the NGOs
that brought the gang-rape case of a poor rustic woman into the
spotlight, but now NGOs were being asked to refrain from promoting
justice, she added.
o o o
Dawn - June 17, 2005
CSOs SLAM MINISTERS' REMARKS ABOUT NGOs
By Our Reporter
ISLAMABAD, June 16: Several civil society organizations (CSOs) here
on Thursday denounced the remarks of two federal ministers against
Pakistani NGOs in the Senate on Monday and demanded them to publicly
apologize. At a press conference, representatives of the
organizations slammed Minister of State for Interior Dr Shahzad
Waseem and Adviser to the Prime Minister on Women Development Nilofar
Bakhtiar for denouncing the NGOs for following a foreign agenda while
pursuing Mukhtaran Mai case.
The NGOs objected to and condemned the fact that the presiding
officer chose not to expunge "untrue, derogatory, slanderous and
defamatory remarks" owing to which the remarks had now become part of
the permanent record of the parliamentary proceedings.
"We totally reject these falsehoods. We strongly resent such
character assassination, which is all the more ironic coming from
representatives of a government which is so heavily donor-driven and
dependent on foreign loans and grants," they said in a joint
statement.
The representatives belonged to Action Aid Pakistan, Aurat
Foundation, Christian Study Centre, Citizens' Peace Commission,
Council of Social Sciences, Pattan Development Organization, Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan, Nomad Gallery, Progressive Women's
Association, Potohar Organization for Development Advocacy,
Strengthening Participatory Organization, Sungi Development
Foundation, Sustainable Policy Development Institute (SDPI), Women's
Action Forum (WAF) and Sachet.
On the one hand the government constantly reiterated that it was
unable to carry out its socio-economic development, gender justice
and poverty reduction agenda without public-private-NGO
collaboration, while on the other it had adopted a blatant policy of
outright confrontation and hostility towards NGOs in general and
women rights, peace and human rights advocacy organizations in
particular.
______
[2]
The New York Times
June 14, 2005
THE MADRASSA MYTH
By Peter Bergen And Swati Pandey
Washington
IT is one of the widespread assumptions of the war on terrorism that
the Muslim religious schools known as madrassas, catering to families
that are often poor, are graduating students who become terrorists.
Last year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell denounced madrassas in
Pakistan and several other countries as breeding grounds for
"fundamentalists and terrorists." A year earlier, Secretary of
Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had queried in a leaked memorandum, "Are
we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists
every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting,
training and deploying against us?"
While madrassas may breed fundamentalists who have learned to recite
the Koran in Arabic by rote, such schools do not teach the technical
or linguistic skills necessary to be an effective terrorist. Indeed,
there is little or no evidence that madrassas produce terrorists
capable of attacking the West. And as a matter of national security,
the United States doesn't need to worry about Muslim fundamentalists
with whom we may disagree, but about terrorists who want to attack us.
We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some
of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners.
We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in
technical subjects like engineering. In the four attacks for which
the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational
levels is available - the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the
attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the
9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 - 53 percent of the
terrorists had either attended college or had received a college
degree. As a point of reference, only 52 percent of Americans have
been to college. The terrorists in our study thus appear, on average,
to be as well educated as many Americans.
The 1993 World Trade Center attack involved 12 men, all of whom had a
college education. The 9/11 pilots, as well as the secondary planners
identified by the 9/11 commission, all attended Western universities,
a prestigious and elite endeavor for anyone from the Middle East.
Indeed, the lead 9/11 pilot, Mohamed Atta, had a degree from a German
university in, of all things, urban preservation, while the
operational planner of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, studied
engineering in North Carolina. We also found that two-thirds of the
25 hijackers and planners involved in 9/11 had attended college.
Of the 75 terrorists we investigated, only nine had attended
madrassas, and all of those played a role in one attack - the Bali
bombing. Even in this instance, however, five college-educated
"masterminds" - including two university lecturers - helped to shape
the Bali plot.
Like the view that poverty drives terrorism - a notion that countless
studies have debunked - the idea that madrassas are incubating the
next generation of terrorists offers the soothing illusion that
desperate, ignorant automatons are attacking us rather than college
graduates, as is often the case. In fact, two of the terrorists in
our study had doctorates from Western universities, and two others
were working toward their Ph.D.
A World Bank-financed study that was published in April raises
further doubts about the influence of madrassas in Pakistan, the
country where the schools were thought to be the most influential and
the most virulently anti-American. Contrary to the numbers cited in
the report of the 9/11 commission, and to a blizzard of newspaper
reports that 10 percent of Pakistani students study in madrassas, the
study's authors found that fewer than 1 percent do so. If correct,
this estimate would suggest that there are far more American children
being home-schooled than Pakistani boys attending madrassas.
While madrassas are an important issue in education and development
in the Muslim world, they are not and should not be considered a
threat to the United States. The tens of millions of dollars spent
every year by the United States through the State Department, the
Middle East Partnership Initiative, and the Agency for International
Development to improve education and literacy in the Middle East and
South Asia should be applauded as the development aid it is and not
as the counterterrorism effort it cannot be.
Peter Bergen, the author of "Holy War Inc.," is a fellow at the New
America Foundation. Swati Pandey is a research associate there.
_______
[3]
Indian Express
June 16, 2005
THE SHADOW OF THE FOREIGNER
Assam must address the influx issue in ways that look to the future
Sanjib Baruah
The Bangladeshi influx issue has suddenly returned to Assam's
political agenda. This time it is in the form of a farce. From 1979
to 1985 Assam witnessed a powerful campaign that sought the expulsion
of ''foreigners'' - supposedly hundreds of thousands in number. The
Assam movement transformed the state's political landscape. The
prolonged civil disobedience campaign marginalised national political
parties and when the movement ended in 1985, the leaders formed the
Asom Gana Parishad that has twice since formed the government in
Assam.
A radical fringe of the Assam movement became the United Liberation
Front of Assam and six years of campaigning on the ''foreigners''
issue brought to the surface cracks in Assam's social fabric. The
infamous Nellie massacre took place during this time and the movement
created the ground for the tribal rebellions that have lasted till
this day.
While the influx issue then was a tool in the hands of youthful
rebels taking on the establishment, the first salvo this time was
launched by none other than the Governor of Assam, Lt. Gen. (Retd.)
Ajai Singh. In the early 1990s he was the GOC of the 4 corps of the
Indian army based in Assam and had commanded two Indian army
operations against ULFA. With Operation Bajrang and Operation Rhino,
says Singh in his official resume, "I smashed the ULFA insurgency in
less than three months, creating a record in counter-insurgency
operations."
In a speech prepared for a conference of governors in February of
this year (that had to be cancelled) and widely reported in the local
press, Singh described the Indo-Bangladeshi border as "one of the
world's most fluid borders, crossed daily, border officials say, by
some 6,000 Bangladeshis who come in search of work, often staying on
to join the estimated 20 million illegal immigrants already in the
country." He expressed concern that Bangladeshi settlements in border
districts could provide "trans-border support for secessionist and
separatist insurgency movements in our state." Singh's speech has had
perhaps unintended resonance in Assam. A little known youth group in
Dibrugarh gave a call for economic boycott of ''Bangladeshis'' that
led to hundreds of poor people fleeing the area. If the improbable
actors in the drama were not enough to make this a farce, the means
that the youth group chose to spread its message surely did. It sent
an SMS message that read, "Save nation, save identity. Let's take an
oath: no food, no job, no shelter to a Bangladeshi." An
English-language SMS as a tool for political propaganda is a far cry
from the wall posters, street plays and popular music of the 1980s.
There is no risk of this farce destabilising the elected government.
Chief minister Tarun Gogoi has called Governor Singh's numbers
"baseless", though one wonders how he seems so certain. The
opposition AGP leadership has expressed sympathy for the action of
the Dibrugarh youth group. But given its inability to act on the
influx issue while in power, the AGP does not have the credibility it
had two decades ago. ULFA's chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa has warned
that the eviction of suspected Bangladeshi illegal migrants puts
indigenous Muslims at risk.
No one would argue that Assam's problem with immigration - legal and
illegal - is not real. Indian census figures read against Bangladeshi
census figures make it abundantly clear that the region continues to
attract immigrants from Bangladesh as well as from other parts of
India. Northeast India is one of South Asia's last frontiers. The
Partition did not put an end to the population movement from
land-scarce areas of eastern Bengal to these historically land
abundant areas that began in the early part of the last century. By
adding Hindu refugees to the flow, it only intensified the trend.
Assam remained an attractive destination for potential settlers
partly because of the government's cavalier attitude to its
responsibilities as custodian of public lands - be it forests or the
flood plains of the Brahmaputra. This has had serious costs in terms
of the environment and quality of life. A compromised system of
obtaining official documentation enables foreigners to become
citizens.
Most suspected Bangladeshis fleeing from Dibrugarh were poor people
working in building sites as well as rickshaw pullers. Random
conversations with people in these occupations indicate that these
days a significant number of them are seasonal migrants from other
parts of India as well as from Bangladesh. They come in response to
the massive labour demand in the region's booming construction
industry. While the discourse on Bangladeshis in Assam assumes that
they are all potential settlers like earlier generations of
immigrants, the reality may be more complex. The mass seasonal
movement by the labouring poor in South Asia has now acquired a
transnational dimension. Yet to save themselves from police and
vigilante harassment, even seasonal migrants may have to seek
protection in some form of official documentation claiming Indian
citizenship.
Chief minister Gogoi's critique of Governor Singh is an
acknowledgment of the ground reality - the importance of the
''immigrant'' vote to the Congress. The same compulsions of electoral
politics had led even the ethnic Assamese-centric AGP to soft-pedal
the foreigners' issue once it entered electoral politics. Their
detractors might call it vote bank politics or the power of the
''Bangladeshi lobby''. But one person's vote bank is another person's
survival shield. To end the stalemate, we must begin looking for
solutions that are not unlilateral, but built on cooperation with the
source country. ULFA's warning about the dangers of trying to evict
Bangladeshis suggest that even what was once the radical fringe of
the Assam movement is today sensitive to the risks of instigating
vigilantism on the influx question. But unfortunately, our
counter-insurgency establishment would much rather describe this
position as evidence of its complicity with the Bangladeshi ''enemy''.
The good news is that there are trends in Assam's politics today that
seek to address the influx question in ways that look to the future.
The bad news is that our security establishment seems bent on
fighting these trends. The former Assam Governor Lt. Gen (Retd.) S.K.
Sinha even had a word for it: he called it a psychological weapon in
his counter-insurgency arsenal.
Baruah is author of 'Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of
Northeast India'
o o o o
BBC News
16 June, 2005, 09:32 GMT 10:32 UK
ASSAM'S VICTIMS OF 'RELIGIOUS HATRED'
By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Assam
Protesters say that Assam is a victim of "merciless infiltration"
In a quiet corner of India, a minority group claims it is the victim
of the same kind of prejudice and upheaval endured by Hindus and
Muslims during the horrors of partition more than 60 years ago.
The people who say they are the latest victims of religious hatred
are large numbers of Muslims of Bengali origin who say that they have
been driven away from some districts in India's north-eastern state
of Assam during the last two months.
As Assamese regional groups renew their drive against those they
believe are "illegal infiltrators" from neighbouring Bangladesh,
these Muslims, whose ancestors settled in Assam several decades ago,
are becoming easy targets.
"The illegal migrants from Bangladesh are a major threat to our
identity. We will become foreigners in our own land unless we keep
these people out of Assam," says Sarbananda Sonowal, top leader of
the regional party, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) .
Assamese Muslims say they are a persecuted minority
Mr Sonowal has a long record of opposing Muslim Bengali settlers.
Until recently, he was president of the All Assam Students Union
(AASU) which led the violent agitation against the migrants in the
1980s .
The strength of feeling against people seen to be illegally in Assam
is growing.
Groups like the Chiring Chapori Yuva Manch (Youth Forum of Chiring
Chapori) have resumed the drive against the "illegal migrants" in
northern Assam, the stronghold of the Tai Ahoms who ruled for several
centuries before the British conquered the province in the nineteenth
century.
In the rich tea-producing district of Dibrugarh - Mr Sonowal's
constituency - Chiring supporters have issued a diktat to all local
Assamese - employ no migrant, do no business with them, do not travel
in vehicles driven by them.
'Pogrom supporters'
Any violation of the diktat, they have warned, will be punished by
heavy fines and even physical assault.
The victims of the Chiring's eviction drive are Muslims who migrated
to Northern Assam from the state's western districts.
Most Muslims evicted from Northern Assam allege the police have
actively backed the Chiring supporters in the pogrom.
The strain of leaving homes has proved too much for some
The police deny the charges.
But the stories told by the Muslim community paint a very different picture.
"The policemen broke into our house. We produced our citizenship
certificates and voter's identity cards, but they insisted we are
Bangladeshis. They would listen to nothing," said Mohammed Jehangir,
who worked as a mason in Dibrugarh.
Abu Miah, a scrap metal dealer, has a similar tale.
"The police snatched my papers and said they were not good enough to
prove my Indian citizenship . When I pleaded, they asked for money.
When I refused the bribe, I was beaten up. Finally, I had to pay the
police 200 rupees ($4.5) to get my papers back."
In Howli and Bijni, small towns in western Assam's Barpeta district,
I met more than 200 Muslims who have been evicted from Northern Assam
districts like Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Golaghat.
I met scores more in the chars (river islands) of Goalpara district
bordering Bangladesh.
Government 'indifference'
"The river is merciless. So are the local Assamese youths and the
police. They think we are all Bangladeshi nationals. Yet we were born
here and we grew up in Assam," said brick kiln worker Maqbool Hossain.
The Assam administration says only about 600 to 700 Muslims may have
been evicted from northern Assam districts.
The state minister for agriculture, Wajed Ali Choudhury, says he
cannot hazard a guess.
"You are here, you have met many of those evicted, so make your
guess," he told me.
Campaigners say illegal immigration must stop
But there is no effort to rehabilitate them in the places they worked.
Many Muslim leaders of the Congress are angry at the "indifference of
the state government".
They say the number of those evicted are in thousands rather than
hundreds, forced out of northern Assam in trucks.
They are compelled to travel in pitch dark to avoid police attention
- and the gaze of the Assamese youth activists.
As I prepared to leave Bijni, one arrived with nearly 50 Muslims, all
evicted from Dibrugarh.
Assamese groups say all those they have evicted are illegal
Bangladesh migrants.
All Assam Students Union (AASU) advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya insists
that "Assam is victim of merciless infiltration".
illegal migrants from Bangladesh are a major threat to our identity
Sarbananda Sonowal, Asom Gana Parishad party
"Neither the state government nor the Centre wants to tackle the
problem because they depend on the migrant vote bank for the victory
in elections," said Mr Bhattacharya.
Muslims constitute nearly 30% of Assam's population which makes it
the state with the second highest Muslim population after Kashmir.
Only a small number of these Muslims are ethnic Assamese, the rest
are of East Bengal origin.
"They keep coming. The border with Bangladesh is porous and once the
migrants enter Assam, they are supported by earlier migrants. We
cannot fight this problem unless we take to the streets," said Mr
Bhattacharya.
But the last time that AASU activists took to the streets in a big
way - in the 1980s - thousands died in riots that followed.
The All Assam Minorities Students Union (AAMSU) recently called a
state-wide strike and has organised many rallies to protest against
the latest developments.
Tension is returning to this forgotten corner of north-east India.
_______
[4]
www.sacw.net | 17 Jun 2005
PARTITION CULPRIT: TO EACH ONE'S OWN
Ram Puniyani
Advani's statement on Jinnah (June 2005) also brought
to fore one more debate, the one related to partition
of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947.
Some of the commentators and spokespersons of
political parties criticized Advani for the ' Jinnah
comment' on the ground that Jinnah was responsible for
partition of the country so how come we can call him a
secular person. In this context many an opinions have
been circulating as to who was ' the' culprit of the
partition tragedy.
One of the popular conceptions has been to blame
Mahatma Gandhi for the same. A section of Hindu Right
wing had popularized that it is Gandhi's policy of
appeasing the Muslims (does the term sound familiar!)
due to which Muslims felt emboldened and went on to
divide the country. Some opinions have been accusing
Gandhi to the extent that since he said that Partition
would take place only on his dead body, how come he
kept quiet and did not oppose the same. One recalls
that this was one of the pretexts given by Nathuram
Godse, to kill the Mahatma. The other argument putting
the sole blame on Gandhi comes on the premise that
Gandhi went in to build and lead the anti-British
anti- British constitution movement and in turn
unleashed the forces which partitioned the country.
The other opinion goes on to say that it was Nehru's
ambition to become prime minister that partition took
place. George Fernandes while rushing to the defense
of Advani said similar thing, that Nehru backed out
from the cabinet mission plans' scheme, so the
partition, so it is Nehru who is responsible for
partition. Not to be left behind Communists with their
formulation of ' Muslims are a separate Nationality', a
confused definition of nationality, are yet another in
the list of culprits. This argument, for some, is that
communists by providing the theoretical justification
to the demand of Pakistan are the primary culprits.
One is sure that the popular perception in Pakistan
must be that Hindus were dominating, Congress, Hindu
mahasabha, and RSS were bent on depriving the Muslims
of the equality so Jinnah saved the Muslims by
demanding for a separate Pakistan to safeguard the
interests of the Muslims of the country.
What is striking in these popular narratives is the
omission of the role, which British played in the
partitioning of the country. Partition process is
generally perceived as the story of a Hindi film, easy
to understand, a Hero; a villain, one black; one white
and so the understanding becomes easy. No straining
the thought process. It is another matter that one
group's Hero is another group's villain and vice
versa.
It also reminds one that in this singling out a one
villain there is an attempt to identify the individual
who played this role. Some researchers with easy
thinking see the whole tragedy as a clash of ego of
the personalities. Nothing can be shallower than this.
Most surprising part is the total blindness towards
the role of British in the process. It is also
reminiscent of the story of elephant and the blind
men, each blind man constructing his own elephant
according to his own experience or whatever.
Partition was no simple process. It was a
multi-layered phenomenon in which interests of
different classes, the goals of colonial powers and
the real politic of the parties and the individuals
all contributed their own share resulting in the
tragedy of mammoth proportions. This was a tragedy,
whose scars are difficult to erase even till the day.
Apart from the role of British, the colonial powers,
the second major factor, which is not much grappled
with, is the diverging interests of the declining
classes, landlords and kings and some middle classes
on one hand and the rising classes, industrialists,
another section of middle class and the vast mass of
peasantry on the other. Also somewhere totally missing
in the narratives is the conflict between the
pre-modern hierarchy of caste and gender and the
values of liberty equality fraternity.
The process of partition has to be grappled as a
multi-layered phenomenon. The base of this is the
conflicting interest of landed gentry on one side and
those around the industries and those striving for
equality at social, economic and gender level. With
the introduction of changes towards modernity the rise
of educated classes, and industrialists was the major
factor to form the core of national movement, against
the colonial powers. While lot of parallelism can be
deciphered in the response of two major religious
communities, the major difference in the response is
due to the majority and minority responses being
different in their articulation and expression.
Formation of Indian National Congress was responded to
by the feudal classes by throwing up of the opposition
to this party by the Rajas, Nawabs , Jamindars and
Jagirdars. Congress, which used the prefix Indian, was
opposed by the ideologies coming from Muslim elite as
being a party of Hindu interests as majority in the
country and Congress are Hindus. At the same time the
Hindu elite called it as the most unfortunate thing to
have happened to Hindus as Congress is treating the
Muslims on equal ground. The ' appeasement of
minorities' formulation has its roots here. While Sir
Syed will tell fellow Muslims to keep off the
Congress, Pandit Lekhram will call Congress as the
biggest misfortune of Hindus. Ignoring these people of
all religions joined this political process, which
acted as an umbrella for all the political tendencies
as well. The crystallization of Muslim communalism
into Muslim league and Hindu communalism into, first
Punjab Hindu Sabha and later Hindu Mahsabha, which was
to be supplanted by RSS, took place in due course of
time. We will not go into the minute details of all
the events, steps and the individual ambitions in this
tragic drama but will try to focus on the diversity of
class interests of the people of India, some involved
in the anti colonial struggle and others witnessing
the national movement from the sidelines.
Muslim and Hindu communalisms were based on the
understanding that religion is the base of nation
state. While superficially opposing each other their
basic premise is the same. It came up in the form of
Muslim league asserting that Muslims are a separate
nation since Mohammad bin Kasim first attacked Sind
and later Muslim went on to rule the country. On the
same wavelength the Hindu communalists stuck to the
ideology that this is a Hindu Nation and the
foreigners, Muslims and Christians have to respect
this fact. Savarkar's Hindutva or who is a Hindu was
the first major theoretical outpouring establishing
religion as the base of a nation. In Hindu Mahasabha
sessions Nepal Naresh (Emperor) was prominently upheld
as the monarch of all the Hindus World over. In 1938
The Hindu Mahasabha President Bhai Parmanand was forth
right in stating that, "Mr. Jinnah argues that there
are two nations in the country - if Mr. Jinnah is right
and I believe he is, that the Congress theory of
building common nationality falls to the ground. The
situation has got two solutions, one is the partition
of the country into two and the other to allow Muslim
state to grow within Hindu state"
RSS ideologue Golwalkar was more forthright to state
that India is a exclusive Hindu nation and minorities
are to be dealt with the way Hitler dealt with Jews
and others, "To keep up with the purity of Nation and
its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging
the country of the Semitic races-the Jews. National
pride at its highest has been manifested here." (M.S.
Golwalkar, We or Our nationhood Defined, Nagpur, 1938,
p. 27) The Muslim communalists were gradually shifting
towards demand for a separate nation, Pakistan, and
its culmination came in the form of Lahore resolution
of 1940. While a section of Muslim elite was behind
this resolution, large sections of Muslim community
were against this.
In the decade of 1940 the communalists resorted to
blatant propaganda against the 'other community'
laying the foundation of the communal violence in
times to come. The second offshoot of this was
sections of middle classes gravitating to communalism
in larger numbers. The surface phenomenon of these did
get manifested in the contrasting stands, which the
communalists on one hand and the national movement on
the other hand took. Primary reason for Jinnah to
leave Congress and become the spokesman of Muslim
League was not his being Muslim or ardent Islamic
follower. Primarily it was the aristocratic,
constitutional values and his opposition to the mass
movement, the participation of masses in the anti
British struggles. Interestingly both communal
streams, Muslim and Hindu kept aloof from the national
movement and did not have the mass participation of
broad sections of society. Both were again not the
subjects of British repression.
The role of British is the one least criticized in the
popular opinion and common sense. British saw this
country inhabited mainly by Muslims and Hindus. This
was not the popular consciousness or identity at that
time but in due course it has become the primary
identity. Their steps, to recognize the Muslim feudal
elements as the representatives of Muslims, their
dubbing the Congress as representative of Hindus,
partition of Bengal on communal lines, separate
electorates and communal award clearly sowed the seeds
of divide and rule policy. The colonial masters were
clear that an undivided India will be a big player on
the World political scene threatening their primacy
and may jeopardize their interest in the subcontinent.
Jaswant Sing while reviewing one of the books on
partition recalls an interesting incident. Lord Wavell
before coming to India went to meet Churchill who was
very busy at that time. As a substitute for the
discussion on the matter he just told Wavell that, if
the plan to give freedom to India is afoot, its OK but
told him to ensure that part of India is kept for
' us', meaning colonial powers. A large presence of US
troops on the Pakistani land and its acting as the
base of US and hatchet man of imperialists today shows
the foresight of colonial powers and the means they
adopt to see that their interests are safe and secure.
At superficial level some the incidents that led to
partition over a period of time were: Motilal Nehru
committee's rejection of the additional demands by
Muslim League and going back from the already accepted
demands under pressure from Hindu communalists,
Congress's refusal to have two Muslim League members
in UP ministry on the ground that this will hinder the
plans to undertake land reforms, Nehru-Patel's refusal
to work jointly with Muslim League in a coalition
ministry due to the background of their experience
that League ministers in the cabinet blocked most of
the steps desired by them, are all manifestations of
the divergent social agendas and goals of the support
bases of these political formations.
One good thing about the whole complex scenario is
that each political stream can pick up one or the
other incident and prove that it is due to so and so
that partition took place etc. The core reason for
partition tragedy is the role of British policy of
divide and rule, the agenda of Muslim communalists and
the goals of Hindu communalists. While Hindu and
Muslim communalists, at surface look to be enemies
with daggers drawn they are able to merrily work
together as manifested in the joint Muslim League,
Hindu Mahasabha ministries in Sind and Bengal
provinces. Their common goal is to present the
homogenous community standing in opposition to the
' other', this construct ensures that intra community
inequalities are put under the carpet and status quo
of social relationship continues.
And there is no shortage of ideologues and academics
that have seen the phenomenon from the point of view
of British colonialists or Hindu Communalists or the
Muslim communalists. The major focus has to be what
were Indian people supporting and standing for. And
here undoubtedly the large sections of peasantry,
workers, industrialists etc. stood by the values of
Indian nationalism (in contrast to Muslim or Hindu
nationalism), freedom movement and accepting the
values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity with
accompanying process of transformation in the caste
and gender relationship, towards relations of
equality, and equal citizenship rights irrespective of
one's religion caste and gender. The field is wide
open; one has to pick and choose between all the
options of understanding available. Even culprits can
be manufactured; we have a wide choice for making our
own culprit of the partition process.
_______
[5]
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:15:56 +0530
JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY CRACKDOWN ON STUDENTS RAISES WIDER ISSUES OF GOVERNANCE
Rila Mukherjee, History Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
The police-RAF crackdown last week on fasting students of the Faculty
of Engineering and Technology (FETSU) on and off campus has raised
wider issues of governance in the minds of concerned citizens in West
Bengal. The brutality of the police continued after the fasting
students were removed to Bangur Hospital where, under the pretext of
administering medication, the police bashed up a few more students on
the night of Thursday the 9th of June. Coming on the face of the most
heavily politicised and media driven Kolkata municipal elections (to
be held on June 19) in recent times, the police crackdown could not
have come at a worse time for the ruling party.
The JU authorities seem unaware of what actually happenned. The Vice
Chancellor Mr. A.N.Basu did not watch TV or see the papers that
stormy weekend (the crackdown took place in the early hours of Friday
morning!), the Registrar was sleeping while JU burned.Who then called
the police? The students perhaps?
Since the night of June 9th FETSU has agitated against the original
suspension of 5 students on the grounds of misbehaviour in 2003
September, held peaceful road blocks, met with concerned citizens and
established links with other SUs in institutions in the country such
as ISI, JNU and others. Celebrities have visited the fasting students
to express solidaity. A new JU enquiry commission has been set up.
This has not succeeded. To date, today the afternoon of June 16, the
students have not succumbed. They have no faith in the new enquiry
commisssion set up by the university. JU has put up such commissions
in the past. And whitewashed the real culprits.
There have also been attempts to side track the real issues; notably
on three fronts in the media. 1. That students are being impeded from
sitting for their exams. This is false, at least in the Arts Faculty.
I was present for the 13th June exams (I was one of the teachers
invigilating) and I can report that no one was stopped from entering
and sitting for the examinations (we held two exams that day). Arts
Faculty students wearing black badges to condemn the incident
campaigned silently. 2 that admissions next week will be
hampered. Not true. The agitating union has exempted the admissions
procedure.3. Most insidious of all the stories planted in the press
is that the corporate sector has displayed grave concern over the
situtation in JU. This is likely to raise concern among parents since
most JU engineering students depend on corpoate placements.
Actually the JU intake is not very large compared to the total number
of recruits driven by the corporate sector here. A spokesperson of
the Bengal Chamber told me that no official delegation had reached JU
to voice their concerns as of date.Private reservations from
corporate bosses do not count, surely, as a general corporate concern?
The large public outcry not only in this country but from abroad
(notably from the NRI alumnis and others who watched the police
crackdown on cable news as far away as in California) should alert
the Unnatoro Bam Front (Improved, Better and Proactive Left Front)
that such measures do not work in a supposed democracy. There is a
large vocal populace that is getting tired of the rhetoric of the
ruling Left of Bengal as a haven of secularism. True, Bengal has an
enviable record on many fronts (agriculture, sex ratio, success of
Panchayati Raj institutions among others, at least as is disseminated
in the press outside Bengal), but so what? What price these
achievements if citizen protest is silenced by brutal crackdowns? No
university can share JU's distinction of bringing in outside cops to
beat up its own students; no VC in any university in the civilised
world likewise.
Perhaps the blinkered attitude (and arrogance) of the ruling Left was
displayed the most by a party member whom I called to ask about the
situation since I had only then got back to Kolkata. He shouted me
down by saying that the authorities were right, the police were
merely feeding the fasting students mishti (sweets?) in hospital and
that the media was telling lies. Perhaps if you tell a lie long
enough you start believing it!
When I asked how come all 4 newspapers and 6 TV channels could be
telling the same lie the same day in a Left Front ruled state he
banged the phone down saying that he was fed up with me.
The gentleman's attitude is symptomatic of the jurassic attitude of
the ruling party. This gentleman was the Founder Director of the
School of Media Communication and Culture. Perhaps he knows better
how the media functions? And as for me, I wonder how much longer the
rulers can continue to pull the wool over our eyes ?Sure students
must be punished for manhandling their teachers (as seemed to be
the case in far away 2003). But not by beating them senseless surely
? Do those teachers who support the state action (because this is a
state matter now) have any moral authority to look their students in
the eye and take classes next semester? As I write the students are
setting off on a maha michhil.Good luck.
o o o o
JADAVPUR AGITATION UPDATE 16TH JUNE MORNING
Kunal Chattopadhyay
In my college days we had a joke: how do you catch a crocodile using
a matchbox, a pin, a binocular and a --- (choose your own version of
a very dull book)? The answer was, go to a riverbank and start
reading the book. You will soon fall asleep. A croc will come up from
the river and look into the book. It will also start yawning and fall
asleep. You will wake up first. Use the binocular the wrong way. The
croc will appear very small. Use the pin to collect it and put it in
the matchbox.
Authorities had seemingly viewed students at Jadavpur University in
the same way - that is, through the wrong end of a binocular. Over
the past five days, they have learnt better. Ostensibly, the police
had been called in only because the authorities were concerned about
the deteriorating health of the students on hunger strike. Such a
typically colonial logic, from the mouth of left front appointees,
should appear surprising to supporters of the left front who live
outside West Bengal. Yet, whether you prefer the foucauldian
arguments about governmentality, or the Marxist one about social
being determining social consciousness, or a combination of both, the
reality is that administrators who even now rhetorically appeal to
"our dear students" are claiming they thought the police could handle
the situation better. When the police came to kiss and put to sleep
the naughty students, neither the Vice Chancellor, nor the Registrar
were present. According to newspaper reports, the Registrar has said
that he had gone to sleep, and when the police rang up to ask him to
go, he could not. Poor fellow. After the hard job of setting cops,
including the RAF on students, he had the right to be tired. It was
just really bad that the students did not recognize this reality. So
next day they scanned around 20 photos of the Registrar and put it up
in the campus with pungent comments. They did not stop there either.
Every day, there have been mobilizations. The Arts Faculty, for a
long time firmly under the grip of the SFI, saw students restive.
Though they did not immediately break out into an aggressive
struggle, they sat for their examinations wearing black badges. A
grassroots movement calling itself the Faculty of Arts Students
sprang up. [Parenthetically, one of the activists, a final year
student who attended my classes both on Athenian democracy (in hi
undergraduate days) and Western Political Thought (this semester) was
seen arguing about the limits of representative democracy and the
need for direct democracy to supplement it. I am glad that after
years of teaching these I have found some meaningful and real life
response.]
Now various political and social pressures began to mount. The CPI(M)
did a series of flip flops. Pressures were of three kinds - academic,
political and business. Academicians raised their voices in protest.
Not only were the usual suspects, i.e., well-known non-left front
academics involved. From phone calls that we received, it was clear
that many allies of the Left Front in the different university
campuses were aghast. A few went beyond private expressions of grief.
Sourin Bhattacharyya, Sankho Ghosh, Amiyo Dev, Nabanita Debsen and
Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, well known former teachers of the Arts
Faculty, JU, signed a collective letter which was published in the
Ananda Bazar Patrika on the 15th. Even more pressing was the fact
that STAR Ananda went into hyper drive. This latest Bengali channel
is the result of a tie up between STAR and Ananda Bazar, not a happy
situation for CPI(M), since so far Akash Bangla had been its
mouthpiece while the rest were catering mostly to the soap and serial
guzzling audience. With Calcutta Municipal Corporation elections to
be held on 19th June, the CPI(M) did not want the JU incident being
constantly played up. Finally, there was corporate pressure, for JU
Engineering students are well thought of. The fact that semester
delay means throwing the entire academic calendar out of control is
also haunting the administration.
Governor Gandhi, in his capacity as Chancellor, asked an explanation
from the VC. The government also made some confusing noise. But over
the first 72 hours the expectation clearly was that the movement,
beaten up by the RAF, would now succumb to the blows. With the hunger
strike being lifted, administration circles thought this was a sure
thing. Rajat Bandyopadhyay, the Registrar, appeared on TV, with a
confident body language and claiming that there had been no violence
in the campus. A DIG of police likewise went on a TV channel saying
there had only been a "mock lathi charge" [mock baton attack]. With
students in the Arts faculty again appearing for their end of
Semester test on Tuesday, opponents thought they could smell the end
coming. But on Wednesday, to the utter consternation of the
authorities, a spontaneous resistance continued. Television cameras
showed absolutely empty rooms. Not a single student had come for the
end semester exams, already postponed once. This boded ill. The next
year's academic calendar has been shot to hell. Admissions are due to
start soon, and agitations are scaring away prospective students and
their parents.
CPI(M) leaders have gone into an overdrive. Anil Biswas and Biman
Basu, donning their mantles as former student leaders, have
pontificated on what student agitations can and cannot do. The SFI
(CPI-M's student wing), which had condemned the police brutality, has
been put under pressure from above and has now come out demanding
that the guilty of 2003 must apologise.
This takes us back to an issue I had raised in my previous essay. Who
are the guilty of 2003? How sure are the identifications? At least
one of those "found guilty" by the Amit Sen commission has gone to
court, saying he had not even been present. So sure there were some
guilty people. But why should these five students be found
responsible? How definite is the proof that they, and they alone,
were the ringleaders or the actual perpetrators of violence? When the
Officers' Association, through its mouthpiece Sri Partha Lahiri,
seeks to put pressure by raising emotional questions, we are
compelled to ask in return - it is proper for you to seek redressal
of your grievance, but are you acting in a legitimate manner when you
ask that someone, anyone, be punished to assuage your sense of hurt?
Accepting that the perpetrators of 2003 must apologise, let us ask,
has the Government apologized for sending in the police? Has the Vice
Chancellor apologized? Has the registrar offered to resign for
fiddling while students were beaten up? If adults in responsible
position will be utterly callous, wheter because of their social
being or their adherence to the codes of governmentality, why should
less mature people feel such a burning need to apologise?
Students have stated that their basic demand - rescinding the penalty
on the five students - and an owning up of responsibility by the Vice
Chancellor and the Registrar, are essential preconditions for any
restoration of normalcy. So while external forces seek to get
toeholds and make some mileage (the CPI-M by denouncing it as
politicized ploys, some opposition parties by hoping to use the
incident for better electoral results in the coming Municipal
elections), the students refuse to vacate the center stage. The final
chapter on the history of this round of struggle is yet to be heard.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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