SACW #2 | Oct. 03-4, 2006 | Secular Sikkim ?; Let Afzal Speak; Gujarati fascism
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed Oct 4 04:29:26 CDT 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire - pack #2 | October 03-4, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2298
[1] Roots and the Route of Secularism in Sikkim (Vibha Arora)
[2] Let Mohd. Afzal Speak (Nirmalangshu Mukherji)
[3] Released Sharmila Chanu continues agitation
[4] Gujarat as another country: The making and
reality of a fascist realm (Prashant Jha)
____
[1]
Economic and Political Weekly
September 23, 2006
ROOTS AND THE ROUTE OF SECULARISM IN SIKKIM
by Vibha Arora
At the height of the Rathongchu hydroelectric
project controversy during 1993-97,
the lamas of Sikkim challenged the authority of the state government since
the development project purportedly defiled their
sacred landscape. While acknowledging
the vacuity of the concept of secularism, this
paper stresses that Sikkimese polity
neither has secular roots in the past nor does
its current route indicate any movement
in that direction. Does contemporary Sikkim,
reflect the successful transformation
of a feudal theocracy into a democratic polity? Can religious nationalism
engender separatism or secessionism and fuel
ethnic conflict between the Nepali Hindu
migrant majority and the Lepcha-Bhutia Buddhist indigenous minority of Sikkim?
These are the questions this paper seeks answers to. [. . .] .
http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2006&leaf=09&filename=10582&filetype=pdf
_____
[2]
The following response was sent on-line to The
Indian Express in support of Nandita Haksar's
piece published by them on 30 September. The
Express has failed to post it or publish it.
Nirmalangshu
LET MOHD. AFZAL SPEAK
R. Subramaniam's response (IE, 2 October) to
Nandita Haksar's piece on Mohd. Afzal (IE, 30
September) has missed the significance of two
central points raised by Ms. Haksar: (1) Afzal
does not belong to any terrorist organization and
has not taken part in the attack itself, and (2)
Afzal has not been heard. These two points are
related.
The Supreme Court has upheld the first
point. It has also thrown out Afzal's confession
under POTA which furnished the only account of
the conspiracy. By rejecting the confession, the
Court has delinked the Parliament attack from
ISI, Masood Azhar, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Gazi Baba,
etc. There is no evidence then for Afzal's
participation in the attack, in the conspiracy,
and in terrorist organisations. If the Court is
right, Afzal is guilty only of aiding and
abetting the named but otherwise unidentified
attackers all of whom died. The rest of the case
remains a total mystery. Haksar's legitimate
query is whether this much of involvement on
Afzal's part warrants capital punishment. She
illustrated the point by comparing Afzal's crime
with that of the actual planners of the
attack-there must be some, hiding somewhere.
There is nothing in her argument to suggest that
these (unknown) conspirators be brought to book
first before Afzal is punished.
More significantly, given that large
parts of the police story has turned out to be
false, even fabricated, it is a legitimate query
if Afzal should be punished on the basis of the
rest of the circumstantial evidence produced by
the same police. Principles of natural justice
demand that Afzal's views on this evidence be
heard and examined. The issue of Afzal's
punishment is thus linked to what he has to say.
As a bonus, some of the mystery of the case may
become unravelled since, according to the Court,
Afzal is the only living witness of the plan to
attack the Parliament.
Prof. Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Department of Philosophy
University of Delhi
Delhi-110007
_____
[3]
The Sangai Express
http://www.thesangaiexpress.com/News_pages/Local_page-10.htm
Local News [October 04 2006 ]
RELEASED SHARMILA CHANU CONTINUES AGITATION
By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Oct 3: Despite being set free by the
court of Judicial Magistrate (First Class),
Imphal East today on completing statutory period
of conviction close aides of Irom Sharmila Chanu
revealed that the hunger striker is still
pursuing with her agitation.
The aides, however, declined to disclose
whereabouts of Sharmila insisting that the
general public would be provided relevant details
tomorrow.
Earlier, the Court decreed that Sharmila had
completed the conviction and subsequent remand
period on October 2 and thereby ordered her
release.
Soon after the order, Sharmila - agitating for
nearly six years demanding complete removal of
AFSPA 1958 from the entire State - was whisked
away from the court premises by her close aides
and disappeared along the Tiddim Road while media
persons tried to follow her.
The media persons pursued the vehicle carrying
Sharmila on assumption that she would continue
her fast at Kangla as the hunger striker had
desired.
During the deliberations on the case, the
Judicial Magistrate M Pemila ruled that the
accused had been acquitted of the charges
levelled against Sharmila as the statutory period
of conviction complied with at the security ward
of JN Hospital had lapsed yesterday.
The Court also took note of the fact that under
similar circumstances sharmila was ordered for
release on personal bond of Rs 5000 on October 2
last year but the then accused refused to furnish
the necessary bond.
_____
[4]
Himal South Asian
October 2006
GUJARAT AS ANOTHER COUNTRY
THE MAKING AND REALITY OF A FASCIST REALM
At a time when a progressive patina is being
painted over the rule of Chief Minister Narendra
Modi, a reporter visiting Gujarat four years and
six months after the pogroms finds a state where
Muslims are being thrust forcibly into ghettos.
The trauma of the butchery is as raw as ever. The
active participation of the Hindu middle class in
Modi's agenda, and the silence of the few who
think otherwise, will guarantee the social and
moral poverty of all Gujarat, even as it secedes
from the rest of Indian society. Meanwhile, the
wilful turn of the communal wheel will deliver
radicalised militants and, thereby, a further
marginalisation of Muslims. The Gujarat of
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has become
unrecognisable. Nothing short of a massive social
movement is required to cleanse the state of
Gujarat.
Text and photographs by Prashant Jha
Ahmedabad is a divided city. On one side resides
fear and anxiety, helplessness and anger. Walk
across Jamalpur, Mirzapur, Dani Limda, Kalopur,
Lal Darwaza and other parts of the Walled City.
Go to Juhapura - one of the largest Muslim
ghettos in India. Scratch a little, and people
want to talk. An entire community feels under
attack, with many resigned to their newfound fate
of being second-class citizens. Rights are
negligible, and the sense of representation
non-existent. What remains strong is the cry for
justice, and the knowledge they will not get it -
not in Gujarat. Why? "Because", explains one
elder in Shah Alam, "we pray to Allah. That is
our transgression."
There are the borders everywhere. A patch of
road, a wall, a turn across a street corner, a
divider in the middle of a road - this is all it
takes to polarise and segregate communities
throughout Gujarat. Each town and city now has
countless borders, forcibly making people
conscious of their religious identity. Me Hindu,
you Muslim. Or one could look at it differently:
the borders on the ground merely reflect and
reinforce the polarisation that has already taken
place in the minds of ordinary Gujaratis.
Yet nothing prepares you for the certitude on the
streets of the other Ahmedabad - in Navrangpura,
Vastrapur, MG Road, Judge's Bungalow Road,
Satellite, Vejalpur. Many Gujarati Hindus think
they have the answers to some of the most
troubling questions of our times. The more subtle
would say there is a problem among Muslims.
Others argue that Muslims themselves are the
problem. They look back fondly at the 'Toofan',
the 2002 riots, and their reminiscences have a
striking thematic unity. The Muslims deserved it.
They are all bloody Pakistanis and criminals. If
we had more time, we would have wiped them out.
See, they are crushed and scared. We taught them
a lesson. And now, the world should learn from
Gujarat about how to deal with the miyas. The one
sentiment that is almost wholly absent is
remorse. What remains, 54 months after the
pogrom, is an all-pervading sense of arrogance
among Hindus in the public sphere. Those who
think differently possibly keep silent.
The story of Gujarat as a whole, then, is a tale
of pride and prejudice on the one side,
victimhood and alienation on the other. In
control of this divisive agenda is the fascist
government of Narendra Modi, who happily builds
on this evolving social reality, and reinforces
it. The everyday tragedy of Gujarat, often
invisible, is in many ways more telling than the
state-sponsored pogroms of 2002. The high degree
of alienation among Muslims, the stereotypes and
discrimination they face, the fact that a
substantial section of society is committed to
the Hindutva agenda, the absence of justice and
accountability, and the continued secession of
the state from its basic constitutional
obligations - these are all elements that go into
making Gujarat, in the very words of the Hindu
Right, its laboratory.
Babu 'Bajrangi' Patel
This is happening even as Chief Minister Modi,
the principal architect of the 2002 killings,
seeks to carve an image for himself as a
development leader, and the chaperon of India's
best-governed state. While the former is true -
that Modi guided the horrors of 2002 and the
subjugation of Muslims in the aftermath - the
latter is far from proven. Despite the loud
applause that is beginning to be heard in New
Delhi and elsewhere, the facts on the ground
reveal that Gujarat is neither the embodiment of
progress nor of good governance.
Babu's bomb
If 2002 was an experiment in the Hindutva
laboratory, men like Babubhai Rajabhai Patel of
the Hindutva outfit Bajrang Dal were in the
forefront of conducting it. The short, stocky
Babu Bajrangi, as he is popularly known, would
pass off as an average middle-class trader. He
claims to be a social worker. Sitting in his
second-floor office in the Ahmedabad suburb of
Naroda, Bajrangi talks about his NGO, Navchetan,
which 'rescues' Hindu women who have been 'lured'
into relationships with Muslim men. "In every
house today there is a bomb, and that bomb is the
woman, who forms the basis of Hindu culture and
tradition," Bajrangi begins. "Parents allow her
to go to college, and they start having love
affairs, often with Muslims. Women should just be
kept at home to save them from the terrible fate
of Hindu-Muslim marriages."
Bajrangi's Navchetan works to prevent
inter-religious love marriages, and if such a
wedding has already taken place, it works to
break the union. When a marriage between a Hindu
woman and Muslim man gets registered in a court,
within a few days the marriage documents
generally end up on Bajrangi's desk, ferreted out
by functionaries in the lower judiciary. The girl
is subsequently kidnapped and sent back home; the
boy is taught a lesson. "We beat him in a way
that no Muslim will dare to look at Hindu women
again. Only last week, we made a Muslim eat his
own waste - thrice, in a spoon," he reveals with
barely concealed pride. All this is illegal,
Bajrangi concedes, but it is moral. "And anyway,
the government is ours," he continues, turning to
look at the clock. "See, I am meeting Modi in a
while today."
One might dismiss Babu Bajrangi as a bombast when
he claims proximity to the chief minister, or
describes the beating of Muslim boys. But for a
man of obvious stature in society he is also
accused of burning Muslims alive. As the chief
accused in the infamous Naroda Patiya case, one
of the worst instances of brutality during the
2002 violence, he is alleged to have led the mob
that killed 89 people in the area. It is a burden
that rests lightly on Bajrangi's shoulders.
"People say I killed 123 people," he says. Did
you? Bajrangi laughs, "How does it matter? They
were Muslims. They had to die. They are dead."
Evidence of Bajrangi's complicity was so
overwhelming that even a pliable state
administration could not save him from an
eight-month stint in prison. "They cannot reduce
my hatred for Muslims with that, can they? While
in jail, I demolished a small mosque that was
located in there," he says with a sly, childlike
grin. Bajrangi's views on what is wrong with
Muslims are unabashedly straightforward. "They
are all terrorists. Refuse to sing even the
national song. Why don't they just go to
Pakistan? Now, our aim is to create a society
where we have as little to do with them as
possible."
Bajrangi is now out on bail. But what has allowed
a man accused of such a heinous crime to walk and
operate freely? Perhaps it is the manner in which
the Gujarat government has, since 2002,
consistently violated its constitutional
obligations to safeguard life and liberty and
provide justice.
Juhapura, Ahmedabad's largest ghetto
After there was fire in a train compartment
carrying Hindutva activists on the morning of 27
February 2002 at the Godhra railway station,
killing 59 people, Narendra Modi decided to
unleash a reign of terror against the state's
Muslims as a 'reaction'. The cause of the fire is
still not certain, though a central government
enquiry committee has reported that it was
accidental, and not the result of a conspiracy.
In a vulnerable political position, and unsure of
future electoral prospects, Modi felt this was
the right spark to ignite communal passions
through the state, and blamed the incident on
'Muslims'. He instructed senior officers to let
the Hindus express their anger - he was
essentially asking for the rioters to be allowed
a free hand. Modi's state machinery and the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) jointly planned the
attacks, with the police themselves in many
places firing on the victims rather than the
rioters.
The state's support to the perpetrators of the
pogrom has continued through the
four-and-a-half-years since the carnage. Out of
the 4252 cases registered in connection with the
violence that gripped Gujarat in February, March
and April of 2002, the files for more than 2100
were closed without the filing of chargesheets. A
few senior police officers have revealed the
manner in which the state subverted justice at
every stage - by distorting and manipulating
complaints at the police station, assigning
investigations to the very officers accused of
assisting in massacres, and allowing the accused
free rein to coerce witnesses into changing
statements. With several public prosecutors
simultaneously in the ranks - or even the
leadership - of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) and its affiliates, the prosecution itself
silently assisted in getting approval for bail
applications. 345 cases have been decided so far,
with convictions in only 13 of those cases.
After a severe indictment of the Gandhinagar
state government by the National Human Rights
Commission, the Supreme Court of India passed a
landmark decision in 2004, ordering
re-examination by a high-level, state-appointed
committee of the decision to close more than 2000
cases. The court also ordered the transfer of
investigation from the state police to the
Central Bureau of Investigation in select cases,
and moved two cases out of Gujarat entirely.
Muslims and secular groups are clinging on to
these small victories as their last hopes for
justice.
And what of the social and economic condition of
the victims? The state government's own
conservative figures put the total loss of
property at INR 6.9 billion. The government has
distributed INR 563 million to the affected
persons, which makes up about nine percent of the
calculated damage. At the peak of the riots, more
than 150,000 people were in relief camps, which
were summarily shut down by the government after
four months. With the state washing its hands of
any rehabilitation for the affected, those who
could not return home have had to live in
resettled colonies constructed by community
organisations. Almost 10,000 families are said to
remain internally displaced in Gujarat.
Pathological normalcy
Shakeel Ahmed heads the legal cell of the Islamic Relief Committee, an
offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), a
conservative Muslim organisation. A well-read man
who can hold forth as easily on Islamic precepts
as on Indian sociology, Ahmed stares
incredulously when asked about relief and
justice. "It would be so foolish to expect it
from the state!" he exclaims. "This was not a
riot; it was a systematically planned pogrom. If
the accused get prosecuted and if relief is
provided, then their entire political purpose
will be defeated." Ahmed's suggestion is
confirmed from a diametrically opposite
direction, that of a senior Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) member of Parliament from Gujarat:
"Compensation, relief, regret - these are
meaningless issues. We wanted to crush them, and
we crushed them. And most Hindus are with us, as
was clear from the subsequent elections. Forget
about this now." For a man of vehement
convictions, it was nevertheless interesting that
the MP requested anonymity. He must still fear
something.
Memory is a convenient, subjective tool. While
Hindu extremists tell anyone who raises
uncomfortable questions about the killings to
'move on', they do not mind evoking the Toofan of
2002 in the most minute detail in order to get
the Muslims to 'behave themselves'. They also
evoke the butchery as a 'feel-good' factor among
themselves. The continuous discrimination against
Muslims is part of the same strategy - and it is
not subtle in the least. Explains Ahmedabad-based
sociologist Shiv Vishvanathan: "What happened in
Gujarat was a mini Rwanda: your neighbour raped
you; people killed between 9 and 6 and went home
singing. It was like a football match where the
Hindus won. There remains festivity around it,
the state denies victimhood, and there is no
erasure." State acquiescence and connivance can
only partially explain such an overriding
phenomenon of exclusion.
Indeed, in the Gujarat of today, among the Hindus
it is considered normal to harbour and exhibit
hatred for the Muslims. To those who may ask how
is it possible to paint an entire state of a
population of more than 50 million with such a
broad brushstroke, this point is exactly what
makes the evolving Gujarat of today different
from all other areas where excesses have happened
in Southasia. Here, the discrimination against
Muslims has the state administration's support
without even a fig-leaf of political correctness,
as well as broad-based agreement on this matter
among large sections of the Hindu masses. Talk to
the common Hindu person on the street, from the
neighbourhood guard to the autorickshaw-wallah to
the shopkeeper, and the refrain is alarmingly
deafening: Muslims are goondas, always doing
illegal things. See, they are now bombing people
everywhere. The pathological has become the
normal. That is what makes societal evolution in
Gujarat unique in India - and exceptionally
lethal.
As elsewhere in India and Southasia, polarisation
has always existed in Gujarati society. Since
time immemorial, Dalits have not dared to stay
inside the village core. Muslims and the
intermediate and backward castes have been a bit
more advantaged, but have still been kept away
from the privileges of the Hindu upper castes.
But even if the notion of a composite culture is
at times over-romanticised, there was at one time
an undeniably pluralist culture in Gujarat. In
part,
this stemmed from its coastal location and
trade-based economy, which inevitably forced
diverse communities together for mutual economic
advantage.
Achyut Yagnik, influential author of an
authoritative book on modern Gujarat, believes
that communal polarisation between Hindus and
Muslims began after the 1969 riots in Ahmedabad,
and accelerated after the rath yatras and
political mobilisation by Hindutva forces in the
early 1990s.
If some had hoped that the national and
international condemnation would make Gujarat's
communal rabble-rousers (with Modi as their
cheerleader) pull back from their extremist
agenda, this has not happened. In fact, the
polarisation has intensified across the state in
the last four-and-half years. If it was difficult
before the riots for a Muslim to find a house to
rent in Hindu areas, it is now impossible. Sophia
Khan would know. A leading women's activist in
Ahmedabad, she has had to undergo significant
changes in her personal and professional life
since 2002. To begin with, the polarised
atmosphere in the city led Khan to shift her
residence to Juhapura, the city's large Muslim
area, although her office remained in the
upmarket Hindu locality of Narayanpura.
Sophia's identity had remained a secret in
Narayanpura because the office had been rented in
the name of a Hindu trustee of the NGO she runs.
A month ago, when neighbours in her office
complex came to know of Khan's faith, she was
asked immediately to pack up and depart. She
tried to put up a fight, but gave up in the face
of constant harassment. "Imagine, they were not
even willing to let me use the lift," she says.
Khan moved her office to a flat in Juhapura, but
with that came a new complication. A Hindu
employee who was working with Khan was pressured
by her family to resign, for they did not approve
of her going to a Muslim area. She is grim as she
intones: "My house is in a Muslim area. My office
is here now. My only Hindu employee is resigning,
and my work revolves around Muslims. This is
exactly how they want to push an entire community
into a corner."
Vis-a-Vis
All over, people are beginning to shift to areas
in which they are a part of the majority. M T
Kazi is a young executive with F D Society, a
Muslim trust that runs educational institutions.
"Everyone is insecure," he says. "What if a riot
breaks out again? Both Hindus and Muslims would
prefer to be in areas where they are surrounded
by their own kind. That way, the possibility of
attack is reduced." But the ramifications of such
a trend can be drastic, says Shakeel Ahmed of
JeI: "Social polarisation inevitably leads to
some kind of economic polarisation. And this will
have a more pronounced impact on the Muslim
minority, because we are too small to create a
self-sufficient unit."
It is not even that the mental and physical
dislocation of Muslims is an urban phenomenon, as
many think. The rural areas in north and central
Gujarat, in particular, are presently seeing a
spurt in polarisation. There are 225 talukas in
Gujarat, the local-level administrative divisions
that encompass about 70-80 villages each. Before
the riots, there was a Muslim majority in five to
ten villages per taluka, a smattering of Muslims
in another 40 percent, and the rest almost
completely non-Muslim. "Now, those five villages
which had a Muslim majority have become
concentration camps, especially in villages in
the Panchmahal district," explains Gagan Sethi,
who runs Jan Vikas, an NGO working with Muslims.
"Muslims in the surrounding area, who feel
insecure or have been pushed out of their own
places, come to these villages." Such rural
ghettoisation is also problematic because it
allows for the possibility of easy monitoring of
Muslims by the state agencies, adding to the
tensions within the community.
In the cities and towns, the segregation of
residential locations has sharply reduced shared
spaces at all levels. A visible example is the
decline in the number of schools that have a fair
mix of Hindu and Muslim students. Children
generally attend schools that are close by, which
means that these institutions are increasingly
segregated. With the newfound sense of
insecurity, parents feel even more strongly about
sending their kids to schools with more of "our
people". Some reports also suggest the existence
of discrimination along religious lines in
admission to elite schools. This troubles
concerned citizens, who are worried that children
may graduate from high school without having made
a single lasting friendship with someone
belonging to another community. The absence of
contact since childhood can only accelerate the
evolution of Gujarat as 'another country', where
Hindus and Muslims live starkly separate lives
and where intolerance becomes the defining
characteristic.
Silent underclass
The 2002 riots were a tragic tale of visible
violence, under the glare of the national media,
which provoked outrage. But Gujarat 2006 is the
story of invisible violence - systematic and
subtle, at the state and social levels. Prejudice
against the Muslims grows by the day.
Salimbhai Musabhai Patel is happy he can
introduce himself as S M Patel - at least it gets
him an appointment with bankers. "People think I
am Hindu that way," he says. A young
entrepreneur, he runs the Patel Finance Company,
with offices in Ahmedabad and Bharuch. "But that
is as far as my initials can get me," Patel
continues with a resigned smile. "Once they know
I am Muslim, they treat me like dirt. Forget
about getting a loan."
It is dusk, and Patel is standing with a group of
other Muslim men on 'their side' of Mirzapur in
Ahmedabad. Patel's comment unleashes a torrent of
similar complaints from the others gathered. We
have no hope of getting a job in Gujarat.
Government service is impossible. If we get in,
we are relegated to the lowest level. The courts
are against us. Muslim vendors are harassed,
while Hindus get away with crimes. Even private
companies prefer Hindus. The ordinary folk think
all of us are Pakistanis. The riots are long
over, goes the common refrain, and sure we are
willing to 'move on'. But what do we do about the
daily injustice? They want to create a society in
which we just don't matter.
This perception among Muslims, of being
disadvantaged because of their faith, seems based
on the hard reality of daily experience. Being
Muslim in Gujarat is now a recipe for continuous
harassment if you want to be anything but a
member of the silent underclass. Activist Sophia
Khan had to wage a struggle to get a phone
connection from the local Tata branch, because
the company had black-listed certain areas. Banks
have similar systems for loan applications. Most
Hindu businessmen would rather not employ
Muslims, due to a combination of personal
prejudice and pressure from the VHP.
For its part, the government ensures that Muslims
are deprived of the most basic of amenities.
Juhapura has a population of more than 300,000,
with a large middle-class base. Yet it does not
have a single bank, its former primary health
centre was shifted to a Hindu area, and public
bus transport routes now take a detour around the
locality. Muslims constitute less than five
percent of the high-level officers in the state's
police force, and even those officials who serve
are shunted to marginal posts.
Baroda: guarding a deserted Muslim street durng Ganesh Visarjan
Yagnik points to how the two influential centres
- the bureaucracy and local power structures -
have been saffronised in the recent past. Muslims
have been essentially ousted from local
Panchayats, cooperatives, agrarian produce
markets, government schemes and other services.
There are more than 20 sub-communities among
Muslims categorised as OBCs ('other backward
classes') in Gujarat, but they face enormous
difficulties in getting the required certificates
that would make them eligible for various
services. Again and again, it has been revealed
how municipal action is deliberately used to
communalise an issue so as to hurt and provoke
Muslim sentiment, which is then used as a pretext
for counter-violence. Recent instances of such
provocation include the demolition of a dargah in
Baroda in May, and the diversion of a sewage pipe
towards a graveyard in Radhanpur in north Gujarat
in August.
Schools have become sites for propagating hate,
with social science textbooks tailored along
'Hindutva' lines. Even public examinations
conducted by the state government are framed not
to evaluate a student's competence, but to judge
his political preferences vis-à-vis the Hindutva
worldview. In early August this year, the Gujarat
State Public Service Commission conducted an exam
to recruit Ayurvedic medical officers. Among the
questions asked: "'Christians have a right to
convert' - who made such a claim?", "Which day is
observed as 'Black Day' by minorities and
'Victory Day' by the Sangh Parivar?", and "Babar,
who established the Muslim empire, was a devotee
of whom?" (the options were Krishna, Buddha,
Shiva and Ram).
There is a point of view sometimes expressed
against those who see Gujarat as Armageddon -
that there are enough traditional linkages among
Hindus and Muslims, despite the strains since
2002. Some will point to the fact that a web of
economic relationships still binds the two
communities, and they will refer to how Muslims
and Hindus interact in a variety of sectors, from
firecracker-making to rakhi-weaving to motor
vehicle repair, all of them monopolised by the
Muslims. Muslims also make the kites that dot the
Gujarati sky on the Hindu festival of Makar
Sankranti in January. Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf, a
kite-maker for the last 32 years, says that the
communalisation has not turned away his Hindu
customers. "But that's because only Muslims make
kites. Where will they go otherwise?" While there
may be advantages in the economic necessity that
has Hindus and Muslims at least nodding at each
other, it is doubtful that the perfunctory
transactions can act as a bridge in a society as
divided as Gujarat has become.
Why here? Why Gujarat?
These instances of polarisation and
discrimination are not mere aberrations, or
restricted to pockets. The trend spreads across
class and caste lines through the entire state,
though it is relatively more intense in
Ahmedabad, Panchmahal and Baroda - the core areas
that shape Gujarat's political discourse.
Certainly, there are Hindus who would prefer a
society that is not so mired in conflict and
mistrust. But what is important, as this reporter
found out in his travels through the state in
early September, is that this voice is mute. It
is the Hindu Right that is setting the agenda for
Gujarat, and amidst the extremism the moderate
who remains silent becomes irrelevant for his
inability to guide events.
AMI VITALE
What led to such a situation? The Hinduisation of
Gujarat has surprised many observers: this is a
region that had a pluralist culture; the people
are driven largely by a mercantile ethos; it did
not undergo the troubled Partition experience as
intensely as did some other states; and, despite
being a border state, it does not have any
special reason to harbour intense bitterness
towards Pakistan, a fact that could have led to
animosity towards Muslims within. Instead, the
answer perhaps lies in its political evolution
and economic competition.
If the state is now considered the lab of
Hindutva, a century ago a British ethnographer is
said to have termed the state the 'laboratory of
Indian casteism'. After Gujarat became a state in
1960, carved out from the then state of Bombay,
the Brahmans, Vanias and Patidars held sway over
the political structure. This hegemony was broken
in 1980 with the Congress's KHAM formula, which
encompassed the Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and
Muslim. The erstwhile ruling-castes retaliated,
initially by instigating caste conflict. But they
soon realised that the 'lower' castes could not
be discarded, and thus began attempting to carve
out a broader Hindu coalition where the 'enemy'
would not be the Dalit, but the Muslim.
Sections of Dalits and Adivasis were slowly
co-opted into the Hindutva-guided system, induced
with promises of upward mobility and enhanced
status, along with other political and economic
dividends. The BJP also seemed like an attractive
alternative to these groups because, despite
voting for the Congress for five long decades,
they had little to show in terms of improvement
in livelihood. These developments in Gujarat took
place at a time when the Hindutva forces were
consolidating themselves at a pan-India level
through the late 1980s and 1990s.
The significant organisational work put in by the
Sangh Parivar in Gujarat over the previous two
decades bore fruit, creating a political base for
the BJP that spanned across all sections of
society. "While we were writing op-ed pieces and
organising college protests against communalism,
they were distributing millions of leaflets all
over and building a base on the ground," says an
introspective Shabnam Hashmi, who runs ANHAD, an
NGO that works to build communal harmony. The
decline of textile mills, especially in
Ahmedabad, destroyed common employment spaces
shared by working-class Hindus and Muslims. These
changes created an unemployed segment of society
looking for a cause, and this provided the
foot-soldiers of the Hindutva movement.
There are some other specificities of Gujarati
society that made the polarisation easier here
than elsewhere. For example, the fact that
Gujarati Hindus are publicly and obsessively
vegetarian has helped to create a visible marker
of difference with the Muslims. First, this
creates a social barrier in and of itself, and
makes it possible for Hindutva outfits to
capitalise on the matter of cow slaughter by
Muslims. '100 percent vegetarian' restaurants
crowd the market streets of Hindu Ahmedabad, and
the very fact that Hindus and Muslims rarely dine
together in restaurants drastically reduces the
possibilities of social engagement.
Mani Chowk border, Ahmedabad
While the chief agent of the polarisation was the
Hindu middle class, it found its natural ally in
the Non-Resident Gujarati. This group constitutes
an extremely prosperous section of the Indian
diaspora overseas, and flushes the RSS and its
affiliates with enormous sums of money.
Supporting this dynamic have been the various
religious sects and preachers who crowd the
spiritual market in Gujarat, as well as large and
influential sections of the Gujarati-language
press.
The trading culture of Gujarat might have created
a pluralist, inclusive environment in the past,
but the economic advantages of social cohesion
seem to have been sacrificed at the altar of
Hindutva. In fact, the relative affluence and
stability of the economy is one reason why -
based on Hindutva propaganda - a large section of
the middle class veered towards religious
chauvinism. The well-off had another reason to
join the Hindutva bandwagon. They saw it as an
opportunity to push their Muslim economic
competitors into a corner with hate propaganda.
Economics played a critical role during the
pogrom in 2002, when those Hindus on the rampage
were keen to destroy the property of some of
their rivals.
It did not help that, unlike some others states
of India, Gujarat does not have a tradition of
left, Dalit or even progressive student movements
- which not only provided space to the Hindutva
campaign, but also ensured that there was no
culture
of protest.
Muslims constitute around nine percent of the
state's population, but have never had an
effective political voice, as they do in UP or
Bihar - another reason why the Hindu Right could
so easily ride roughshod over their basic rights.
The Congress Party, since the 1970s and through
the 1980s, had taken the easy way out to win the
Muslim vote, by encouraging conservative elements
among them; it also protected certain hardened
criminals who happened to be Muslims. The Sangh
Parivar cleverly used this as a pretext to
convince the Hindus in Gujarat that minorities
were being appeased at their cost. While Muslims
were and are being targeted elsewhere in India as
well, these factors have combined to create a
rather unique situation in Gujarat.
One-man state
The critical state support for communal extremism
following the rise of Narendra Modi, the fact
that a large section of Hindu society harbours
extremist notions about Muslims, and the absence
of an effective political opposition to this
discourse makes Gujarat stand out in the broader
Indian context. Fortunately, the particular mix
of societal factors that have made Gujarat
'another country' - while they may exist in small
areas elsewhere - do not come together at a
statewide level anywhere else. Gujarat has gone
into its extremist cocoon willingly and alone,
and there is the hope and expectation that no
other part of India will follow where Gujarat has
gone.
Sauyajya (R) and a friend. Hindutva catches them young.
The elevation of Narendra Modi as chief minister
in late 2001 has everything to do with what
Gujarat has become. He provided the match to the
communal powder-keg that the state had already
become. Political psychologist Ashis Nandy (along
with Achyut Yagnik) interviewed Modi in 1992, and
Nandy has written about how he was left shaken by
the experience. Emerging from the meeting, Nandy
told Yagnik that Modi met all the criteria of an
authoritarian personality, and was a clinical and
classic case of a fascist. A decade later, that
assessment proved correct, when Modi
systematically engineered the carnage against
Gujarat's Muslims.
Faced with the outrage that engulfed India after
the Gujarat massacres, rather than take a
defensive approach, Narendra Modi has
aggressively introduced a potent mixture of
Gujarati parochialism and Hindutva to cement his
political foundations. His trick has been to
construct a four-fold binary - of the insider
versus outsider, Gujarat versus Delhi, Gujarati
media versus English media, and Hindu versus the
'pseudo-secularist'. Any criticism can be easily
deflected by using this matrix.
While manipulation of the mass mindset may have
helped Modi turn vilification to advantage, in
intervening elections at the state and local
levels the image of the Hindutva ogre is
something he has decided he can do without at
present. This is because Modi has his vision
firmly set on the national BJP leadership, for
which he has now to coin a new image for himself
- that of a strong, anti-terrorism leader,
focused on development and good governance. And
this explains the recent brand-building exercise
to portray Gujarat as the most developed state in
the country.
Gujarat has always been a relatively prosperous
state, and for Modi to try to hog credit for the
traditional achievements of an entrepreneurial
class seems excessive. If anything, Modi can be
faulted for not being able to build substantially
upon this base.
Economists of varied hues have doubts about the
idea of Gujarat as a new economic haven, yet
another of Modi's propositions as he tries to
reposition his image. Investment in the state is
largely restricted to a few large players pumping
in huge amounts of money in capital-intensive
units, which have little trickle-down effect.
Gujarat has missed out on the new economy, with a
weak Information Technology base and few of the
outsourcing units that are all the rage in other
successful states. In addition, the state's
educational system is in a rut, the crucial local
co-operatives are riddled with scams and
divisions, and the state is quickly slipping on
the human development index scale.
The idea of Modi as a good administrator, too, is
a bogey that has its roots in his strong-leader
image. In interacting directly with the state's
far-flung hierarchy, he has been accused of
undercutting the authority of ministers and
legislators alike. Modi can be ruthlessly
efficient, but only when he wants to see results
in his pet projects. "His is the efficiency of
the emergency era. This fear-induced work culture
is not sustainable, because it is weakening
public institutions. Gujarat has become a one-man
state," says Javed Chowdhury, a former bureaucrat
of the Gujarat cadre. The good-management myth
was severely bruised with the late-August floods
in Surat, which were entirely due to faulty
dam-water management by the state administration.
What Modi's dictatorial style of functioning has
done is to create massive dissension within his
own party, as well as in the broader Hindutva
parivar. But while that may somewhat upset Modi's
own political trajectory, it has had little
impact on Gujarat's communalism. The dissidents
are more radically 'Hindu' than even Modi. Their
differences with him are about power and
patronage - not about Hindutva.
One of the reasons the Gujarati political
discourse has been so completely captured by the
saffron agenda is the abject political and
ideological surrender of the Congress party.
Flirting with a variety of soft Hindutva itself,
the party's Gujarat unit has decided not to take
on Modi's fascist state directly. Congress
workers, after all, were also part of the
marauding mobs in 2002, and even today the party
refuses to take up issues of discrimination
against Muslims publicly. This has left Muslims
despondent, but they have little choice.
Usmanbhai Sheikh, a Muslim activist in Ahmedabad,
explains: "Congress treats us like its mistress,
knowing we cannot turn elsewhere."
But the Modi government is not invincible. If the
Congress is able to put together a proactive,
secular agenda, and consolidate an alliance
between Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims, it has a
good chance of ousting the chief minister and his
party, and of reversing his divisive agenda. At
the peak of polarisation during the 2002 assembly
elections, after all, more than 50 percent of the
population voted against Modi - a figure that
would have to have included a substantial number
of Hindus. A change in Gujarat's government would
come as some relief, for the state would not be
as active in engineering everyday hatred. But
even if the Congress party state unit were to
muster the energy to take on Modi, it is doubtful
that this alone would help to restore a social
fabric that has been left in tatters. The
communalism in Gujarat has not only become deeply
entrenched, it has become bolted to the plank of
fascism. Politics-as-usual can hardly be the
panacea; what is needed is a social movement for
Gujarat to cleanse itself.
Modified society
It is early September. Baroda is tense. Its
Muslims are scared. It is the last day of the
Ganesh festival, when Hindus will take part in
large processions before immersing their idols.
Trouble is anticipated. Only four months ago, the
demolition of a dargah had triggered riots here.
Security has been beefed up across the city - the
state government does not want another blemish on
its record, at least not now.
Yusuf Sheikh is sitting in his house in Tandalja
- also derisively called 'mini-Pakistan' by local
Hindus, because of its Muslim majority. Worried
about what might happen, he explains the
undercurrent of tension: "If Muslims are out in
these areas where processions are being taken
out, there is a high possibility that a VHP
person will throw a stone at some idol, and blame
it on us. Muslims will then be called the
instigators and there will be riots." The city's
Muslims have shut their shops, stocked up on
supplies and huddled down inside their homes.
Sheikh is a ground-level political activist in
Baroda. An officer of the central government's
Intelligence Bureau, based in Baroda, pays him a
visit to get a sense of the Muslim mood. Sheikh's
request to him is to keep an eye on the younger
elements in the Ganesh processions. The
intelligence official is fairly confident that no
incident would occur today. "The state government
is determined not to allow violence." he says.
The government's decision could have to do with
the fact that with no elections around the
corner, and Modi seeking to carve a new image,
allowing a riot at present would not be
politically astute. On the broader communal
situation, the officer has a 'realistic' take:
"It is ok. See, in UP, Mulayam Yadav supports
Muslims, and so Hindutva-wallahs have no say.
Here it is Hindu rule. So it is the Muslims who
are down."
'Afraid' might better capture the sentiment of
Muslims, for the Hindus in Baroda do not seem to
be merely celebrating a religious festival.
Trucks and minivans carry huge idols, followed by
hordes of people. Blaring music resonates from
all corners, and those gathered dance
aggressively to the tune of hit Bollywood
composer Himesh Reshammiya. That in itself would
be the nature of a Hindu festival anywhere else
in India. But here, the saffron flags seamlessly
merge with the Indian tricolour. Harshad, an
ecstatic-looking 18-year-old, explains: "We are
Hindus. And Hindus are Indians. In our festivals,
you will see the Indian flag also."
In Baroda in Modi's Gujarat, the Ganesh festival
is treated - and exploited - not as a cultural
but as a nationalist event. Those excluded accept
their status quietly. Silence and deserted
streets greet an observer in Muslim areas of the
city. Here, there is a curfew-like atmosphere. A
few local elders stand outside to ensure that no
trouble ensues, while state police guard the
city's invisible borders. But while the day of
Ganesh might be one when insecurity among
Gujarati Muslims comes forth most visibly, they
remain fearful, helpless and alienated throughout
the year. We don't have anyone. This is not our
government. Who do we turn to?
But this is not a saga only of victimhood. When a
community is pushed into a corner, there are
bound to be consequences. Frustrated youngsters
will inevitably react one way or the other. The
easiest is to leave the state, but that would
entail entering as a member of an underclass in
an alien society in another Indian state, and few
of the poorly-skilled and -educated Muslim youth
would venture forth under such circumstances.
Much more likely is that some will take matters
into their own hands, to fight the oppression
that is an all-pervading reality, or follow the
siren call of militant leaders. Where will
Narendra Modi be to take the blame when the
exclusion of yesterday and today invites the
conflagration of tomorrow?
The response of the richer Muslims, who also have
nowhere else to turn, has been to try and strike
up a deal with the state government. Those
belonging to the Bohra and Khoja communities, for
example, are trying see if they cannot run their
businesses unhindered in return for offering
their political support to Modi. But the most
positive response would seem to be an emphasis on
mainstream, modern education among Muslims as a
means to responding to the Modi challenge.
Indeed, Muslims across class and sectarian lines
have turned to education as a passport to a
self-confident future. "There is a realisation
that we must have more skills and make ourselves
more useful. That is the only way out," says M T
Kazi of the F D Education Society.
The Gujarati Muslim is realising the importance
of education, of learning the language of rights,
of asserting his or her presence in the
marketplace. But there will remain the question
of whether the larger 'Modified' society is
willing to accommodate this pool of people when
it is ready. And that is why there has been
another simultaneous trend in the opposing
direction, marked by the increase in the
influence of conservative Muslim organisations.
"They are all going into the laps of mullahs.
Imagine what will happen if all these people get
radicalised," says Mahesh Langa, an Ahmedabad
journalist worried about the end result of what
Modi and his ilk have wrought. The continued
persecution, direct and indirect, makes it fairly
easy for these outfits to expand their influence
among Muslims.
When this reporter, with his longish beard,
walked into an elite government colony in
Ahmedabad to meet a senior official, three
children suddenly got off their bicycles. One
screamed aloud, "Terrorist!" Why? "Because you
are a Mussalman," he responded. So? "All Muslims
are terrorists. My father is a judge. He will
call you terrorist in court." Really? "Yes. Now
get out of here. This is a Hindu area!" Sauyajya
is 12 years old and has not met a single Muslim
in his life. No one knows how many Sauyajyas are
in the making in Gujarat.
_____
[5]
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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/
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
More information about the Sacw
mailing list