SACW | Dec. 28-29, 2006

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | December 28-29, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2340 - Year 8

[1]  Salma Sobhan Memorial Lecture - December 2006 (Amartya Sen)
[2]  India's Nuclear Disarmament Gets Critical (Praful Bidwai)
[3]  India: Santa should trim his beard, better 
still shave it off (Jawed Naqvi)
[4]  India:  BJP: return to temple politics (K.N.Panikkar)

____


[1]

[Text of Salma Sobhan Memorial Lecture - 25 December 2006]

AGENCY, INEQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

by Amartya Sen

I feel very honoured and also very happy to be 
here, back in Dhaka, my ancestral town, and among 
friends whom I greatly admire and like. And, yet, 
it is also a very sad occasion for me: it is 
impossibly hard to get used to the idea that the 
dynamic and visionary friend, Salma Sobhan, who 
lit up our lives so profoundly, is not with us -- 
and will not be with us again. It is, however, 
also an occasion of very great pride for us, for 
having known so wonderful a human being, whose 
life and ideas still inspire us.

In an open letter addressed to Salma just after 
her death, her followers in the International 
Solidarity Network of Women Living Under Muslim 
Laws told her -- and us -- how she had influenced 
the thoughts, commitments and struggles of her 
friends and associates. I am taking the liberty 
of quoting from that immensely moving document:

"Our very vocabulary in WLUML is coloured by 
Salma-isms. This is not just because, as Zari 
says, Salma had the light touch of unobtrusive 
leadership. Nor is it just because, as Vahida 
says, Salma had the brilliance that allowed her 
to keep track of discussions even when seemingly 
dozing off -- then suddenly would bounce back 
with incisive inputs and contributions while 
others -- seemingly awake -- struggled with the 
issue at hand. In fact, the Salma-isms came from 
that incredible combination of a vast fount of 
knowledge, situation-perfect analogies and 
humour. Always that humour and mischievous smile."

I first saw that mischievous smile -- and Salma's 
gentle humour -- more than fifty years ago, in 
October 1955, when she had just arrived at 
Cambridge as an undergraduate. Rehman Sobhan and 
I were then working for -- in fact running -- the 
active South Asian students' society called the 
Majlis: I think Rehman was the president, and I 
was the general secretary. We were then busy 
recruiting fresh members from those arriving from 
the subcontinent. So Rehman and I went to see 
Salma, in her college, to persuade her to join 
the Majlis. Salma smiled as Rehman unleashed his 
well-rehearsed chain of arguments on why a newly 
arrived South Asian at Cambridge must join the 
Majlis immediately, or else her life would be 
culturally and politically ruined.

Salma listened and was clearly not entirely 
averse to signing up (and that, indeed, she did), 
but she was not persuaded by Rehman's hard sell: 
Rehman learned, I imagine, to be more influential 
later on. On that occasion though, more than 
fifty years ago, there was scepticism in Salma's 
eyes, but friendliness too, as if she stood far 
ahead and looked back at us with tolerance and 
with a smile of unconcealed amusement.

I was not aware then, of course, how momentous a 
meeting that would prove to be for Rehman 
Sobhan's own life, and for the lives of a great 
many other people in the subcontinent, and in the 
world, as Salma would go on to join Rehman in 
enterprises far larger, and far more momentous, 
than our tiny little Majlis on the banks of the 
tiny little Cam. The Meghna, if I may invoke the 
mighty river of Bengal, of her political vision 
and intellectual leadership would come with 
abandon in the decades to follow.

So what was this intellectual Meghna? What power 
made Salma Sobhan's ideas so profound and her 
influence so strong? To answer these questions, I 
must distinguish between the implicit force of 
Salma's life and example, and the explicit 
influence of her reasoning and active leadership. 
On the first -- Salma's life and example -- she 
exploded many myths that impoverish social 
perceptions and that continue, alas, today to 
make the contemporary world unnecessarily 
flammable. Chief among the myths is the 
much-touted belief that our lives must be 
determined by the singular identity of the 
community in which we are born -- an automatic 
priority of an inherited identity about which we 
have no choice whatsoever.

Salma Ikramullah, as I knew her first, had 
something to tell the champions of choiceless 
cultural destiny through the chosen life she went 
on to lead. She also had something to tell the 
political sectarians who try to persuade us that 
our religious identity must overpower every other 
affiliation, association or affection we may 
have. Her life is a refutation of that mindless 
celebration of unreasoning singular loyalty that 
has come recently from religious warriors -- 
Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, and others.

Her life had a message also for the confused 
cultural theorists who try to confine us into 
little closed boxes of extraordinarily gross 
identities of civilizational categories, and also 
for anthropological reductionists who insist that 
we are the creatures of singular identities that 
are not subject to reasoning and choice but which 
we "discover" -- that magic word of identity 
politics and of rigidly communitarian philosophy.

Salma was born into the top layer of Pakistani 
aristocracy and political elite. Liberal and 
broad-minded as her own family was, she still had 
to take a huge leap when she chose to identify 
with the cause of the freedom of Bangladesh. 
Reasoning and reflected choice were central to 
her life, not passive acceptance of societal 
"unfreedoms" that the politics of confusion 
imposes on less courageous and less clear-headed 
human beings. Also, as someone who was a devout 
Muslim (when she was staying with my mother for a 
few days in our home, Pratichi, in Santiniketan, 
my mother wrote to me in England to say how 
admirable and inspiring she found Salma's gentle 
religiosity), Salma also showed with great 
clarity that religious identity -- important as 
it can be on its own -- does not obliterate every 
other affiliation and attachment that we have, 
related to class, gender, culture, citizenship, 
political commitment, or personal friendship, nor 
eclipse our ability to be guided by reason, if we 
so choose.

This is an intellectual assertion of immensely 
powerful reach in the contemporary world -- a 
world that has been made so poisonous by the 
cultivation of unchosen singular identities of 
one kind or another. We are constantly pushed, 
today, by ferocious patrons of religious politics 
who call us constantly to battle. We are also 
pushed by the intellectual fog of civilizational 
categorizers who place us into sealed boxes of 
"the Muslim world," "the Hindu world," "the 
Judeo-Christian Western world," and so on, with 
high theory joining hands, if only implicitly, 
with very low politics.

And we are also diverted into totally 
counterproductive initiatives of Western national 
politics which cannot go beyond seeing us as 
being defined entirely by religion, with 
confounded political leaders interpreting people 
of diverse ancestries simply through religious 
classification. This is well exemplified by the 
alarming British official attempts at defining 
people in contemporary Britain by placing them 
exclusively in pre-determined fixed categories 
such as "British Muslims," "British Hindus," and 
such, in addition, of course, to old Brits (there 
is no difference in this classification between a 
Bangladeshi Muslim and a Sudanese or Saudi 
Arabian or Somali Muslim).

Salma's determination to lead an "examined life" 
(that great Socratic virtue), based on reflected 
choices, constituted an emphatic assertion of the 
power of humanity and reasoned action, rather 
than blind -- or imposed -- passivity. We have to 
follow Salma's lead in refusing to be drawn into 
the destructive fury of assigned -- and 
unreasoned -- identities in which "confused 
armies," to use Matthew Arnold's graphic phrase, 
"clash by night."

If Salma had a great deal to teach us against 
blind identity politics, gross cultural 
determinism and unnecessary social disaffection 
generated by intellectual confusion, she also had 
much to teach us about the nature and reach of 
societal inequality in general and gender 
inequality in particular. As an inspiring and 
immensely admired teacher in Dhaka University's 
Law Department, Salma also had fresh ideas to 
offer on the importance of human rights, 
including the rights of women, and she also had 
much to say on the ways and means of fighting 
against -- and overcoming -- social injustice.

On the important issue of gender inequality, 
Salma Sobhan brought about a remarkable 
enrichment of the gender perspective and feminist 
understanding of social inequalities in 
Bangladesh and also elsewhere. The Ain O Salish 
Kendra she founded here offered a much deeper 
analysis of the roots of deprivation of 
disadvantaged people, including afflicted women. 
The work of this remarkable institution still 
draws on the clarity and reach of Salma's 
discernment of social disparity in general and 
gender inequality in particular.

While fresh legislation is often needed to 
guarantee the rights of those who have very few 
recognised rights, even the existing legal 
opportunities that can help if used may not be 
effectively usable because of other handicaps, 
like penury or illiteracy, which can prevent 
downtrodden people from invoking and utilizing 
the protective force of even the existing law (if 
you cannot read what the law says, you are 
inescapably impaired from using that law).

Along with her friends and colleagues -- Hameeda 
Hossain and others -- Salma laid the foundations 
of a comprehensive approach to resisting human 
rights violations and defending the claims of the 
most disadvantaged members of the society. ASK -- 
Ain O Salish Kendra -- with its intellectual 
power and practical commitment, remains a lasting 
monument to Salma's vision and initiative.

In paying my own tribute to Salma's ideas and 
intellectual leadership, I shall devote the rest 
of this talk to some observations of my own, both 
on gender inequality and on human rights. They 
relate closely to Salma's vision. Central to 
these perspectives is the idea of human agency, 
including women's agency. My own understanding of 
this general idea has been much influenced by 
Salma's thoughts, and the force of her practical 
work.

I begin with the question of gender justice. 
Salma's leadership and initiatives can be seen as 
parts of a huge change that has occurred in 
feminist understanding and action in recent times 
across the world, in dealing with social 
deprivation in general and women's deprivation in 
particular. This involves a change from the 
initial concentration of women's movements 
exclusively on women's well-being to a newer and 
more activist focus on women's agency in the 
broadest sense.

The appreciation of women's agency involves, I 
think, an important evolution of the basic nature 
of women's movements across the world. Not long 
ago, the tasks faced by these movements were 
primarily aimed at working towards achieving 
better treatment for women -- a more square deal. 
The concentration was mainly on women's 
well-being, and it was, of course, a much needed 
corrective after centuries of neglect of women's 
interests in the understanding of the well-being 
of society.

The objectives have, however, gradually evolved 
and broadened from this "welfarist" focus to 
incorporate -- and emphasize -- the active role 
of women's agency. Rather than being seen as 
passive targets of welfare-enhancing help, women 
can be seen in this perspective as active agents 
of change: the dynamic promoters of social 
transformations that can alter the lives of both 
women and men.

It is easy to miss the significance of this 
change in perspective because of the overlap 
between the two approaches that concentrate 
respectively on well-being and agency. The active 
agency of women cannot, in any serious way, 
ignore the urgency of rectifying many 
inequalities that blight the well-being of women 
and subject them to unequal treatment; thus the 
agency role must be much concerned with women's 
well-being also. When Ain O Salish Kendra, or ASK 
as it is often called, tries to help women to 
realize and achieve what they should get through 
more powerful use of legal and political 
opportunities, it tries to bolster women's 
agency, and through that it can have far-reaching 
effects on women's own well-being as well.

Similarly, coming from the other end, any 
practical attempt at enhancing the well-being of 
women cannot but draw on the agency of women 
themselves in bringing about such changes. For 
example, Muhammad Yunus's rightly celebrated 
initiatives through the Grameen Bank movement, 
which have recently received the recognition they 
strongly deserve in the Nobel Prize for Peace, 
have been able to help women mainly through 
strengthening women's own agency through 
micro-credit.

The same can be said of the many different 
avenues, from education to employment, which have 
been part of the initiatives of BRAC, led by 
Fazle Hasan Abed, which are also internationally 
celebrated, and will continue to receive, 
rightly, much global acclaim. These, and other 
activist movements in Bangladesh, have been able 
to help women mainly though advancing women's own 
agency. Their effects can be seen not only in 
women's immediate well-being, but also in women's 
economic and social enterprise. There are also 
huge indirect effects of women's reasoned agency 
on fertility rates (Bangladesh had a faster fall 
in the fertility rate than almost any other 
country in the world), and on the survival of 
children, and even on the nature of political and 
social discourse in this remarkable country.

Thus, we have to recognize the dual regularities 
that (1) the well-being aspect and the agency 
aspect of women's lives and works inevitably have 
a substantial intersection, and (2) yet they 
cannot but be different at a foundational level, 
since the role of a person as an "agent" is 
fundamentally different from the role of the same 
person as a "patient." The fact that the agent 
may have to see herself as a patient as well does 
not alter the additional modalities and 
responsibilities that are inescapably associated 
with the agency of a person. There is a very 
important conceptual distinction here.

The agency issue relates, in fact, to the 
medieval distinction between an "agent" and a 
"patient," and I would argue that the view of 
women as agents of change -- not just as patients 
whose interests deserve support -- is critically 
important for the broadening of "women's agenda." 
A patient is a person whose well-being should 
interest others, and who needs the help of people 
in general. An agent, on the other hand, has an 
active role in pursuing whatever goals she has 
reasons to support and promote. These goals can 
be very broad, taking us well beyond the concern 
with the agent's own well-being.

The focusing on the agency role is central to 
recognizing people as responsible persons. Not 
only are we well or ill, but also we act -- or 
refuse to act -- on the basis of our reasoning. 
We, women and men, have to take responsibility 
for doing things, or not doing them. It makes a 
difference, and we have to take note of that 
difference. This elementary acknowledgment -- 
though simple enough in principle -- can be 
exacting in its implications, both to social 
analysis and to practical reason and action.

Of course, the most immediate argument for 
focusing on women's agency may be precisely the 
role that such an agency can play in removing the 
iniquities that depress the well-being of women. 
Empirical work in recent years has brought out 
very clearly how the relative respect and regard 
for women's well-being is strongly influenced by 
such variables as women's ability to earn an 
independent income, to find employment outside 
the home, to have ownership rights, and to have 
literacy and be educated participants in 
decisions within and outside the family. Indeed, 
even the survival disadvantage of women compared 
with men in developing countries seems to go down 
sharply -- and may even get eliminated -- as 
progress is made in these agency aspects.

The altered focus of women's movements is, thus, 
a crucial addition to previous concerns; it is 
not a rejection of those concerns. The old 
concentration on the well-being of women, or to 
be more exact, on the "ill-being" of women was 
not, of course, pointless. The relative 
deprivations in the well-being of women were -- 
and are -- certainly present in the world in 
which we live, and are clearly important for 
social justice, including justice for women. For 
example, there is plenty of evidence that 
identify the biologically "contrary" -- socially 
generated -- "excess mortality" of women in Asia 
and North Africa (with gigantic numbers of 
"missing women" -- "missing" in the sense of 
being dead as a result of gender bias in the 
distribution of health care and other 
necessities).

That problem is unquestionably important for the 
well-being -- indeed, even the survival -- of 
women, and cannot but figure prominently in 
exposing the treatment of women as "less than 
equal." There are also pervasive indications of 
culturally neglected needs of women across the 
world. There are excellent reasons for bringing 
these deprivations to light, and to keep the 
removal of these iniquities very firmly on the 
agenda: women are certainly the victims of 
various social iniquities.

But it is also the case that the limited role of 
women's active agency seriously afflicts the 
lives of all people -- men as well as women, 
children as well as adults. While there is every 
reason not to slacken the concern about women's 
well-being and ill-being, and to continue to pay 
attention to the sufferings and deprivations of 
women, there is also an urgent and basic 
necessity, particularly at this time, to take an 
agent-oriented approach to the women's agenda.

What began as an inquiry into women's passive 
misfortunes has gradually been transformed into 
an analysis of women's active capability to make 
the world a more liveable place. Salma Sobhan's 
own contributions can be seen in the perspective 
of this broad development -- a global change that 
is still gathering momentum across the world.

I turn now to the subject of human rights. In 
fact, there is quite of a lot of similarity 
between the agency perspective, that has been so 
important for the recent successes of women's 
movements, and the importance of taking an 
adequately broad approach to human rights (well 
beyond the limits of formal laws), which has been 
a subject of classic arguments, going back at 
least to the eighteenth century. I will also 
argue why and how a heterodox woman thinker, 
namely Mary Wollstonecraft (in many ways a very 
similar human being to Salma Sobhan), has been 
quite central to both, the theory of women's 
agency and the development of an adequately broad 
view of human rights in general.

Despite the tremendous appeal of the idea of 
human rights, it is seen by many legal and 
political theorists as intellectually frail and 
lacking in foundation and, perhaps, even in 
coherence and cogency. It is certainly true that 
frequent use of the language of "rights of all 
human beings," which can be seen in many 
practical arguments and pronouncements, has not 
been adequately matched by critical scrutiny of 
the basis and congruity of the underlying 
concepts.

This is partly because the invoking of human 
rights tends to come mostly from those who are 
more concerned with changing the world than with 
interpreting it, to use a distinction made famous 
by that pure theorist turned political leader, 
Karl Marx. In this contrast, there can be a 
stirring appeal, on one side, and deep conceptual 
scepticism, on the other. Underlying that 
scepticism is the question: what exactly are 
human rights, and why do we need them?

I have tried to present a particular approach to 
the discipline of human rights in two essays in 
recent years, and I shall take the liberty of 
drawing on the arguments developed there. In the 
interpretation pursued there, I would argue that 
human rights are best seen as articulations of a 
commitment in social ethics, comparable to -- but 
very different from -- accepting utilitarian 
reasoning. Like other ethical tenets, human 
rights can, of course, be disputed, but the claim 
is that they will survive open and informed 
scrutiny. Any universality that these claims have 
is dependent on the opportunity of unobstructed 
discussion.

Human rights are, thus, integrally related to 
public reasoning that would occur in a 
politically open -- as opposed to an 
authoritarian and regimented -- society. The 
relevance of human rights cannot, of course, be 
rejected by pointing to the fact that in 
societies in which free public discussion is not 
allowed the discourse of human rights can be 
easily stifled. The real test is the strength and 
richness of that discourse when public discussion 
is allowed, rather than being penalized by 
censorship and incarceration -- or worse.

This view contrasts with the more conventional 
view of seeing human rights in primarily legal 
terms, either as consequences of humane 
legislation, or as precursors of legal rights. 
Human rights may well be reflected in 
legislation, and may also inspire legislation, 
but this is a further fact, rather than a 
defining characteristic of human rights 
themselves.

The legal interpretations have appealed to many 
for very understandable reasons. The concept of 
legal rights is well established and the language 
of rights -- even human rights -- is influenced 
by legal terminology. The relation between human 
rights and legal rights is, in fact, a subject 
with some considerable history. The American 
Declaration of Independence in 1776 took it to be 
"self-evident" that everyone is "endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights," and 
thirteen years later, in 1789, the French 
declaration of "the rights of man" asserted that 
"men are born and remain free and equal in 
rights." These are clearly pre-legal claims -- to 
be reflected in law -- not originating in law.

It did not, however, take Jeremy Bentham long, in 
his "Anarchical Fallacies" written during 1791-2 
(aimed specifically against the French "rights of 
man"), to propose the total dismissal of all such 
claims, precisely because they are not legally 
based. Bentham insisted that "natural rights is 
simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible 
rights (an American phrase), rhetorical nonsense, 
nonsense upon stilts." He went on to explain:

"Right, the substantive right, is the child of 
law; from real laws come real rights; but from 
imaginary laws, from "law of nature" [can come 
only] "imaginary rights."

It is easy to see that Bentham's rejection of the 
idea of natural "rights of man" depends 
substantially on the rhetoric of privileged use 
of the term of "rights" -- seeing it in 
specifically legal terms. However, insofar as 
human rights are meant to be significant ethical 
claims (pointing to what we owe to each other and 
what claims we must take seriously), Bentham's 
diagnosis that these claims do not necessarily 
have legal or institutional force -- at least not 
yet -- is in fact correct but entirely irrelevant.

Indeed, even as Bentham was busy writing down his 
dismissal of the "rights of man" in 1791-92, the 
reach and range of ethical interpretations of 
rights were being powerfully explored by Thomas 
Paine's "Rights of Man," and by Mary 
Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of 
Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral 
Subjects," both published at the same time, 
during 1791-92, though neither book seems to have 
interested Jeremy Bentham. They should, however, 
interest us.

Tom Paine was identifying what we would now call 
"human rights" to guide our public efforts, 
including efforts to give legal force to them 
through new legislation (Tom Paine's was the one 
of the earliest voices demanding anti-poverty 
legislation). In Tom Paine's understanding, these 
rights were not -- as with Bentham -- "children 
of law," but in fact "parents of law," providing 
grounds for legislation -- a point of view that 
would receive support, two centuries later, from 
the great Oxford philosopher of jurisprudence, 
Herbert Hart.

Indeed, in a classic essay "Are There Any Natural 
Rights?" (published in 1955), Herbert Hart has 
argued that people "speak of their moral rights 
mainly when advocating their incorporation in a 
legal system." This is certainly one way in which 
human rights have been invoked, and Hart's 
qualified defence of the idea, and usefulness of 
human rights in this context, has been justly 
influential. However, the more general point is 
that whether or not these serious claims are 
ideally legislated, there are also other ways of 
promoting them, and these ways are part and 
parcel of the understanding and realization of 
human rights.

Mary Wollstonecraft's work took note of this 
broader point as well. She discussed elaborately 
how women's legitimate entitlements could be 
promoted by a variety of processes, of which 
legislation was only one, and need not even be 
the principal one. We can see an immediate 
similarity here with Salma Sobhan's involvement 
with literacy and education for women as a means 
of the realization of their rights -- even 
legally established rights that may not otherwise 
be utilized. The effectiveness of the moral 
claims that constitute human rights -- their 
practical "vindication" (as Mary Wollstonecraft 
called it) in addition to their ethical 
acceptance -- would depend on a variety of social 
features, such as actual educational 
arrangements, public campaign for behavioural 
modification (for example modifying what we would 
now call sexist behaviour), and so on. They could 
radically transform the power and reach of 
women's agency.

In a sense Mary Wollstonecraft was pointing to 
ways that provide powerful bases for the work 
that many non-legislative organizations, 
including international associations, citizen's 
organizations and developmental NGOs try to do -- 
often with good effect. The United Nations, 
through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
made in 1948, paved the way for many constructive 
global activities. That declaration did not give 
the recognized human rights any legal status, and 
the effectiveness of that momentous recognition 
has come in other ways. The ways include fresh 
legislation which an agreed recognition can 
inspire (the UN declaration did, in fact, 
motivate a number of new "human rights laws" 
across the world), but also other efforts that 
are supported and bolstered by the recognition of 
some foundational claims as globally acknowledged 
human rights.

Also, global NGOs (such as OXFAM, Save the 
Children, Action Aid, Medicines Sans Frontiers, 
and others) have been involved for a long time in 
advancing human rights through actual programmes 
in providing food or medicine or shelter, or by 
helping to develop economic and social 
opportunities, and also through public discussion 
and advocacy, and through publicizing and 
criticizing violations. These are all fields of 
activity related to the commitments of Ain O 
Salish Kendra.

To pursue the conceptual distinction, I should 
also comment on the fact that some human rights 
that are worth recognizing are not, it can 
argued, good subjects for legislation at all, so 
that the legal approach to human rights may be 
even more limited than I have already argued. For 
example, recognizing and defending a wife's moral 
right to be consulted in family decisions, even 
in a traditionally sexist society, may well be 
extremely important and can plausibly be seen as 
a human right.

And yet the advocates of this human right who 
emphasize, correctly, its far-reaching ethical 
and political relevance would quite possibly 
agree that it is not sensible to make this human 
right into a "coercive legal rule" (perhaps with 
the result that a husband would be handcuffed and 
taken in custody if he were to fail to consult 
his wife!). The necessary social change would 
have to be brought about in other ways, including 
through women's education and economic and social 
roles, which tend to relate in one way or another 
to the strengthening of women's agency.

It is this broad focus on agency that, I think, 
Mary Wollstonecraft and Salma Sobhan shared. Each 
advanced the theory and practice of strengthening 
agency as a means of making human rights more 
powerful and more fulfilled. Of course, they 
worked in very different worlds. The Ain O Salish 
Kendra, founded by Salma Sobhan, is active in the 
specific context of Bangladesh and the developing 
countries of today, whereas Mary Wollstonecraft's 
efforts related to the debates and programmes at 
the time of the French Revolution in Europe and 
US independence in America. But there is a very 
firm conceptual as well as practical connection 
between the two approaches.

Since I am much impressed and influenced by both 
the approaches, and also admire both Mary 
Wollstonecraft's and Salma Sobhan's respective 
visions, I thought I should end tonight by 
pointing to the commonality of ideas that link 
these two very great women. There is a connection 
there, in the understanding of the relation 
between agency, human rights and the removal of 
inequality that needs to be remembered well and 
used even more extensively. I feel extremely 
fortunate to have had the opportunity to give the 
Salma Sobhan Memorial Lecture today, and I thank 
you all for listening.

Prof Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998.

(Source: The Daily Star, 29 December 2006)

_____


[2]


Inter Press Service,
28 December 2006

INDIA'S NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT GETS CRITICAL

by Praful Bidwai

In October 2006, eight years after India and 
Pakistan crossed the nuclear threshold, the world 
witnessed yet another breakout, when North Korea 
exploded an atomic bomb and demanded that it be 
recognised as a nuclear weapons-state. Talks 
aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its 
nuclear weapons, in return for security 
guarantees and economic assistance, collapsed 
last week.

In 2006, the ongoing confrontation between the 
Western powers and the Islamic Republic of Iran 
over its nuclear programme got dangerously 
aggravated. The United Nations Security Council 
imposed harsh sanctions on Iran but these may 
prove counterproductive..

Tehran dismissed the sanctions as illegal and 
vowed to step up its "peaceful" uranium 
enrichment programme. It added one more cascade 
of 164 uranium enrichment centrifuges during the 
year and is preparing to install as many as 3,000 
of these machines within the next four months. 
(Several thousands of centrifuges are needed to 
build a small nuclear arsenal.)

Developments in South Asia added to this negative 
momentum as India and the United States took 
further steps in negotiating and legislating the 
controversial nuclear cooperation deal that they 
inked one-and-a-half years ago. The deal will 
bring India into the ambit of normal civilian 
nuclear commerce although it is a nuclear 
weapons-state and has not signed the 
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan continued to test 
nuclear-capable missiles and sustained their 
long-standing mutual rivalry despite their 
continuing peace dialogue.

Looming large over these developments in 
different parts of Asia are the Great Powers, led 
by the U.S., whose geopolitical role as well as 
refusal to undertake disarmament has contributed 
to enhancing the global nuclear danger in 2006.

According to a just-released preliminary count by 
the Federation of American Scientists, eight 
countries launched more than 26 ballistic 
missiles of 23 types in 24 different events in 
2006. They include the U.S., Russia, France and 
China, besides India, Pakistan, North Korea and 
Iran.

"One can list other negative contributing factors 
too," says Sukla Sen, a Mumbai-based activist of 
the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, 
an umbrella of more than 250 Indian 
organisations. "These include U.S. plans to find 
new uses for nuclear armaments and develop 
ballistic missile defence ("Star Wars") weapons, 
Britain's announcement that it will modernise its 
"Trident" nuclear force, Japan's moves towards 
militarisation, and a revival of interest in 
nuclear technology in many countries."

"Clearly," adds Sen, "61 years after Hiroshima 
and Nagasaki, the world has learnt little and 
achieved even less so far as abolishing the 
nucleus scourge goes. The nuclear sword still 
hangs over the globe. 2006 has made the world an 
even more dangerous place. The time has come to 
advance the hands of the Doomsday Clock."

The Doomsday Clock, created by the Bulletin of 
the Atomic Scientists, published from Chicago in 
the U.S., currently stands at seven minutes to 
midnight, the Final Hour. Since 1947, its minute 
hand has been repeatedly moved "forward and back 
to reflect the global level of nuclear danger and 
the state of international security".

The Clock was last reset in 2002, after the U.S. 
announced it would reject several arms control 
agreements, and withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic 
Missile Treaty, which prohibits the development 
of "Star Wars"-style weapons.

Before that, the Doomsday Clock was advanced in 
1998, from 14 minutes to midnight, to just nine 
minutes before the hour. This was primarily in 
response to the nuclear tests by India and 
Pakistan in May that year.

The closest the Clock moved to midnight was in 
1953, when the U.S. and the USSR both tested 
thermonuclear weapons. The Clock's minute hand 
was set just two minutes short of 12.

The lowest level of danger it ever showed was in 
1991, following the end of the Cold War and the 
signature of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 
between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Clock 
then stood at 17 minutes to midnight.

"The strongest reason to move the minute hand 
forward today is the inflamed situation in the 
Middle East," argues M.V. Ramana, an independent 
nuclear affairs analyst currently with the Centre 
for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and 
Development, Bangalore.

"Iran isn't the real or sole cause of worry. It's 
probably still some years away from enriching 
enough uranium to make a nuclear bomb. But there 
is this grave crisis in Iraq, which has spun out 
of Washington's control. And then there is 
Israel, which is a de facto nuclear weapons-state 
and is seen as a belligerent power by its 
neighbours in the light of the grim crisis in 
Palestine. All the crises in the Middle East feed 
into one another and aggravate matters," adds 
Ramana.

At the other extreme of Asia, new security 
equations are emerging, partly driven by the 
North Korean nuclear programme.

"Today, this is a key factor not only in shaping 
relations between the two Koreas, but the more 
complex and important relationship between North 
Korea, China, Japan and the U.S.", holds Alka 
Acharya, of the Centre of East Asian Studies at 
the Jawaharlal Nehru University here.

Adds Acharya: "The U.S. has failed to resolve the 
North Korean nuclear crisis diplomatically. North 
Korea's nuclear weapons programme will spur Japan 
and South Korea to add to their military 
capacities. There is a strong lobby in Japan 
which wants to rewrite the country's constitution 
and even develop a nuclear weapons capability. 
Recently, Japan commissioned a study to determine 
how long it would take to develop a nuclear 
deterrent."

Japan has stockpiled hundreds of tonnes of 
plutonium, ostensibly for use in fast-breeder 
reactors. But with the fast reactor programme 
faltering, the possibility of diversion of the 
plutonium to military uses cannot be ruled out. 
Similarly, South Korea is likely to come under 
pressure to develop its own deterrent capability.

"Driving these pursuits are not just nuclear 
calculations, but also geopolitical factors," 
says Prof. Achin Vanaik who teaches international 
relations and global politics at Delhi 
University. "The U.S. plays a critical role here 
because of its aggressive stance and its double 
standards. It cannot convincingly demand that 
other states practise nuclear abstinence or 
restraint while it will keep it own nuclear 
weapons for 'security'. Eventually, Washington's 
nuclear double standards will encourage other 
countries to pursue nuclear weapons capabilities 
too."

In particular, the joint planned development of 
ballistic missile defence weapons by the U.S. and 
Japan is likely to be seen by China as a threat 
to its security and impel Beijing to add to its 
nuclear arsenal.

Adds Vanaik: "The real danger is not confined to 
East Asia or West Asia alone. The overall 
worldwide impact of the double standards 
practised by the nuclear weapons-states, and 
especially offensive moves like the Proliferation 
Security Initiative proposed by the U.S. to 
intercept 'suspect' nuclear shipments on the high 
seas, will be to weaken the existing global 
nuclear order and encourage proliferation. The 
U.S.-India nuclear deal sets a horribly negative 
example of legitimising proliferation."

"A time could soon come when a weak state or 
non-state actor might consider attacking the U.S. 
mainland with mass-destruction weapons. The kind 
of hatreds that the U.S. is sowing in volatile 
parts of the world, including the Middle East, 
could well result in such a catastrophe,'' Vanaik 
said.

The year 2006 witnessed a considerable weakening 
of the norms of nuclear non-proliferation. Until 
1974, the world had five declared nuclear 
weapon-states and one covert nuclear power 
(Israel). At the end of this year, it has nine 
nuclear weapons-states -- nine too many.

No less significant in the long run is the 
growing temptation among many states to develop 
civilian nuclear power. Earlier this month, a 
number of Arab leaders met in Riyadh in Saudi 
Arabia and decided to start a joint nuclear 
energy development programme..

"Although this doesn't spell an immediate crisis, 
nuclear power development can in the long run 
provide the technological infrastructure for 
building nuclear weapons too," says Ramana. "The 
way out of the present nuclear predicament does 
not lie in non- or counter-proliferation through 
ever-stricter technology controls. The only 
solution is nuclear disarmament. The nuclear 
weapons-states must lead by example, by reducing 
and eventually dismantling these weapons of 
terror."

_____


[3]

Dawn
December 27, 2006

SANTA SHOULD TRIM HIS BEARD, BETTER STILL SHAVE IT OFF

by Jawed Naqvi

LAST week I got my best Christmas gift this year. 
A young lawyer-turned cartoonist handed me a copy 
of sketches she had used to educate school 
children in Gujarat on the problems facing 
secularism in India.

The first sketch showed a police chief furiously 
pointing to the picture of a bearded man on the 
wall. "Get him," he commanded his men. The second 
image showed a plane surrounded by security men 
with the silhouette of a bearded man, among 
others, showing from one of the windows. The 
third frame had a bewildered looking Santa Claus 
in handcuffs and an exulting press photographer 
screaming: "We've got him."

Last week brought, yet again, three days of 
extreme anguish for everyone in Gujarat who has a 
tear to shed for the terror-stricken people of 
the state. It will be five years in 
February/March when women were raped en masse and 
burned alive by supporters of the proto-fascist 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The victims live today in ghettoes, terrified and 
ostracised under the BJP's watch. Some of the 
survivors, including at least two Hindu women and 
six or seven Muslim women, tried to recall their 
nightmares before a group of human rights 
activists. But they were still pretty traumatised 
to be able to speak with any confidence.

Half of them just broke down, so did many in the 
audience. One Hindu woman who had helplessly seen 
her neighbour Ahsan Jaffri chopped into pieces by 
a Hindutva mob managed to give a coherent account 
of the ordeal. The details are too gory to be 
recounted here. She also lost her only son in the 
frenzy.

Hindutva fascism is striking roots elsewhere in 
India. Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and 
Peace and Communalism Combat organised the 
three-day convention in Delhi. Apart from the 
victims of Gujarat, there were representatives 
from the BJP-ruled states of Karnataka, Orissa, 
Chhatisgarh, and from Malegaon and Nagpur in the 
Congress-ruled Maharashtra. Dalits, Muslims, 
tribes people. They all had harrowing tales to 
tell. And quite evidently the women and their 
children were the worst affected.

In this context the efforts of the young 
lawyer-turned cartoonist though highly laudable 
are actually no more than a few drops in the 
ocean. There is an entire industry that thrives 
on transmitting images with just the opposite 
message.

Take television. The Indian media was absent 
throughout the three-day convention that vented 
the woes of India's Dalits, Muslims and tribes 
people in Delhi. The victims of atrocities had 
come to the Indian capital from faraway places. 
They were ignored. And yet TV exponents claim a 
degree of virtuosity in the selection of their 
stories, which more often than not leaves out the 
poor from their frame.

Barkha Dutt of NDTV, for example, wrote last week 
that a new awakening had helped get justice for 
Jessica Lal, who was murdered by the son of an 
influential politician. It is true that TV 
channels had played a major role in the eventual 
judgment that sent the alleged killer of the 
popular model to Tihar Jail.

How come then that the same TV channels are doing 
everything to get the Kashmiri convict Afzal Guru 
hanged? Suddenly, spurious 'exposés' are finding 
their way on to prime time TV, as Arundhati Roy 
wrote last week.

Some of India's most responsible news channels 
are indulging in this game, "in which 
carelessness and incomprehension is as deadly as 
malice". A few weeks ago, CNN-IBN showed a 
programme on Afzal that saw a Kashmir security 
man actually claiming publicly that he had 
tortured Afzal for days. This was months before 
the attack on the parliament took place in 
December 2001. There was no media follow up on 
the graphic confession of Afzal's brutal torture, 
a heinous crime forbidden by the United Nations. 
India has not signed the convention.

Last week on Dec 16, on prime time show, NDTV ran 
an 'exclusive' video of Afzal's 'confession' made 
in police custody in the days immediately 
following his arrest. But it was never clarified 
that the 'confession' was five years old.

In fact, even the Supreme Court threw it out 
saying that Afzal's 'confession' by the Special 
Cell had violated safeguards provided under the 
then prevailing anti-terror laws.

So what made NDTV exult in this discredited old 
'confession' all over again? Why now? Arundhati 
obviously knows why, but she presses on with her 
queries. How did the Special Cell video find its 
way into the hands of the NDTV, she asks. Does it 
have something to do with the fact that Afzal's 
clemency petition is pending with the president 
and a curative petition asking for a retrial is 
pending in the Supreme Court?

At the start of the show, for several minutes, 
the image of Afzal 'confessing' was inset in a 
text that said "Afzal ne court mein gunaah qabool 
kiya tha" (Afzal had admitted his guilt in 
court). This is blatantly untrue. Then, for a 
full 15 minutes, the 'confession' ran without 
comment. After this, an anchor came on and said, 
"Sansad par hamle ki kahani, Afzal ki zubaani." 
(The story of the Parliament Attack, in Afzal's 
words.) This, too, is a gross misrepresentation.

Well into the programme, a reporter informed us 
that Afzal had since withdrawn this 'confession' 
and had claimed it had been extracted under 
torture.

Later on, the 'confession' was juxtaposed with 
what the channel said was Afzal's statement to 
the court, but was actually the text of a letter 
he wrote to his High Court lawyer in which he 
implicates State Task Force (STF) in Kashmir and 
describes how in the months before the parliament 
attack he was illegally detained and tortured by 
the STF.

"NDTV does not tell us that a deputy 
superintendent of the STF has since confirmed 
that he did illegally detain and torture Afzal," 
Ms Roy wrote. "Instead, it uses Afzal's letter to 
discredit him further."

There are various other reasons why the broadcast 
of this programme was a seriously prejudicial 
act. The Supreme Court had convicted Afzal 
because that as it said was the demand of the 
collective conscience of the Indian society. That 
was a lose ball and Arundhati pounced on it.

"It wasn't surprising to watch the 'collective 
conscience' of society forming its opinion as the 
show unfolded," she wrote. The SMS messages on 
the ticker tape said: "Afzal ko boti boti mein 
kaat ke kutton ko khila do. Afzal ke haath aur 
taang kaat ke, road mein bheek mangvaney 
chahiye." (Cut him into bits and feed him to the 
dogs. Cut off his arms and legs and make him beg.)

"Hang him and hang those who are supporting him."

Even without Sharia courts, India seems to be 
doing just fine. That was what Ms Roy had to say 
on the state of play in the world of images. 
Perhaps it is time for the young 
lawyer-turned-cartoonist to conjure a new, more 
safe image for Santa Claus. Preferably minus the 
beard.


______


[4]


The Hindu
December 29, 2006

BJP: RETURN TO TEMPLE POLITICS

by K.N.Panikkar

The attempt to invoke the name of Ram will hardly work a second time.

- FILE PHOTO: AFP

BJP president Rajnath Singh and senior leaders 
L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the party 
headquarters in New Delhi.

THE BHARATIYA Janata Party has decided to return 
to the politics of the Ram temple. Its decision 
to relaunch the temple movement is reminiscent of 
what it did in the 1990s: use the temple as an 
emotive symbol for political mobilisation. The 
temple issue then generated so much passion that 
the BJP was able to ride to power on its 
strength, although it left in its trail many dead 
and injured.

Is the BJP hoping to repeat history? It appears 
so, at least with respect to the elections in the 
Uttar Pradesh early next year. Being the homeland 
of Lord Ram, it is believed that the promise to 
construct the temple would generate enough 
religious sentiments to catapult the BJP to power 
in Uttar Pradesh. Once Uttar Pradesh is captured 
Delhi will not be very distant; the road to 
Delhi, as Atal Bihari Vajpayee stated, is through 
Lucknow. The immediate fallout of invoking the 
temple politics is that it could pave the way for 
the internal consolidation of the sangh parivar. 
It is an open secret that the constituents of the 
parivar have been unhappy with the BJP leadership 
and have been pulling in different directions. 
The initiative of the BJP has created some 
enthusiasm among the constituents of the parivar. 
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which was out of sync 
with the BJP since the last election, has 
welcomed the call to resurrect the religious 
politics. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is 
likely to follow suit. The sangh parivar expects 
to regain the lost solidarity of its different 
branches through this new-found initiative.

The solidarity of the parivar had suffered as a 
consequence of the defeat in the last election, 
although the defeat in itself was not the prime 
reason. Notwithstanding the different 
interpretations by psephologists and social 
scientists to account for the BJP's defeat, it is 
undeniable that a secular and liberal assertion 
against communalism played a crucial role. But 
the internal reading of the sangh parivar was 
different. The VHP and the RSS, for instance, 
attributed the defeat to the inability of the BJP 
Government to implement the Hindutva agenda. And 
the central theme of the Hindutva agenda was the 
construction of the Ram temple. The constraints 
of coalition politics was the official party 
explanation for the inability to pursue the 
Hindutva agenda successfully. But there were 
other reasons.

It appears that an ideological churning was on 
within the parivar, particularly with regard to 
the best strategy to realise Hindu Rashtra. At 
least some leaders had become sceptical about the 
feasibility of a Hindu religion-centred politics 
to deliver the goods. This consisted of the 
section generally known as the moderates in the 
party. To begin with, their spokesman and leader 
was Mr. Vajpayee, and at a later stage Lal 
Krishna Advani himself was in favour of this 
path. Such a view also underlined the quest for 
relative freedom from the overriding control of 
the RSS. The theoretical justification for this 
departure from the Hindutva agenda was provided 
by the former left-wing journalist Sudheendra 
Kulkarni in the notes he had prepared on 
India-Pakistan relations. It is widely believed 
that Mr. Advani's Jinnah speech was inspired by 
these notes, which presumably argued for a 
liberal and accommodating attitude towards 
Pakistan.

RSS, VHP alarmed

The RSS and the VHP were alarmed by this 
deviation that was antithetical to the 
ideological commitments of the sangh parivar. 
They were quick to realise that any compromise 
with Pakistan would weaken their ideological 
position within the country. As a consequence 
they strongly and quickly retaliated and ensured 
the marginalisation of the advocates of the 
liberal line within the parivar. The speed with 
which Mr. Advani was shown his place by the RSS 
is a telling example. But the friction led to a 
crisis in the party, which considerably weakened 
it in national politics. Since then steady 
decline has set in the party. During this period 
all that it had been trying to do was to weather 
one crisis after the other, losing in the bargain 
its credibility and popularity. The BJP had 
perforce to do something dramatic to regain its 
sheen.

The decline of the BJP, however, did not mean 
that the sangh parivar had become irrelevant or 
inconsequential. Although its political wing, the 
BJP, had lost much of its attraction, the 
intervention of its social and cultural 
organisations continued unabated, albeit 
silently. The attacks on the minorities continued 
- in Kota in Rajasthan, in Mangalore in 
Karnataka, Dangs in Gujarat, and in many other 
places. Also new communal zones such as Baba 
Budangiri in Karnataka were created. At the same 
time "cultural" activities were undertaken with 
greater vigour. Ekal Vidyalayas and Saraswati 
Shishu Mandirs managed by the RSS have been 
steadily on the increase. At the same time, the 
reluctance of the Central Government to take a 
strong anti-communal stance has helped the 
communal forces to resurrect themselves in the 
public space. As a result, intellectuals who were 
fellow travellers of communal forces during the 
rule of the National Democratic Alliance are able 
to claw back to positions of power and thus to 
make their presence felt in the secular space.

Immediately after the electoral loss, the sangh 
parivar had given a call to return to the street. 
The `Prime Minister in waiting' Mr. Advani 
believes the most attractive symbol that would 
ensure popular support is the Ram temple. Whether 
it will come to his rescue is a different matter. 
It is unlikely that the people will be prepared 
to shed blood once again in the name of Ram. 
Moreover, the spontaneity with which people 
responded to the Ram Rath and the temple 
construction is difficult to recapture.

The attempt of the BJP to invoke the name of Ram 
is a desperate act that will hardly appeal to the 
people for a second time. The divisive politics 
the temple agenda foregrounds does not hold much 
of a promise.

The resolution of the impasse in Ayodhya cannot 
be through the construction of either a temple or 
a mosque. It is necessary to seek a different 
solution. Historically, Ayodhya was a holy place 
with the presence of the followers of different 
religions. Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims had 
lived there amicably. Savita Ambedkar, wife of 
Babasaheb Ambedkar, had once demanded that a 
Buddha Vihara be constructed at Ayodhya.

Taking a cue from her suggestion it may be 
appropriate to turn Ayodhya into a place where 
all religions could coexist in a creative and 
interactive manner: a place where religious 
humanism could find social and intellectual 
articulation. Hinduism as we know and practise it 
today is the result of the confluence of 
different philosophical and cultural steams. 
Creating Ayodhya as an ideal place for the coming 
together of different faiths would not only 
strengthen the secular tradition of the country, 
but also would help enrich Hinduism.

(The writer, a historian, is a former 
Vice-Chancellor of the Sri Shankaracharya 
University, Kalady.)

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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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