MUMBAI REKINDLES DEBATE ABOUT MUSLIMS, THEIR BEARD AND SO ON by Jawed Naqvi

Dawn
December 1, 2008

MUMBAI REKINDLES DEBATE ABOUT MUSLIMS, THEIR BEARD AND SO ON

By Jawed Naqvi

WHAT else could one do to cope with relentless grief? So I joined an impromptu candlelight vigil held by a dozen friends at India Gate, where we paid our silent tribute to the fallen brave of Mumbai. Scores of men, women and children were visiting there anyway, eating ice creams or buying dinky toys. They were ordinary citizens having a holiday due to the Delhi assembly elections. Some of them also joined us in lighting candles.

There was no speech, no slogan, just a silent tribute. I grabbed the balloons from a boy vending them and gave him a candle to light. He hesitated, not believing that he was being urged to join the nation’s grief. Later he said thank you. I am not sure if it was relief at being returned the balloons or for being given a candle to light along with a class of people for many of whom he was no more than a pest. Two other boys in tattered sweaters were walking around the colonial war memorial selling hot coffee. I gave them candles too as I looked after their steaming kettles.

I handed out candles to a group of evidently upper class women. A friend, a woman journalist who doesn’t normally have patience with communal gossip, overheard their conversation. She whispered to me that the women were suspicious of me. She thought it had something to do with my beard and the Afghan cap I wear on cold evenings. Only when I introduced myself and declared that India needed a dictator did they look relaxed. I said Narendra Modi was my hero, even though he sports a different kind of beard. This was a ploy that works when there’s no scope for serious discussion. The women said the country needed Modi as prime minister. I endorsed the view so that they could sleep peacefully that night. We parted on this cordial note.

On the way back, my friend and I discussed how beards had become particularly suspect since the advent of Osama bin Laden. And here, the Mumbai terrorists who themselves were probably clean-shaven pub-crawling college kids, had deepened mistrust that was not just rooted in facial hair. They had succeeded in their mission to drive a deeper wedge among Indians as evident at India Gate.

It didn’t seem to matter to the women that the Jewish rabbi who was killed in Mumbai with his wife also sported a beard. It was irrelevant that Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the revered icon of the RSS wore a mullah-like beard as did the troika of Marx, Engels and Lenin. If anything Hitler and Stalin were always neatly shaved. But that’s not the point. Today in India it has become difficult to say exactly where and how prejudices are given shape such as the kind the women exuded.

The next day, on Sunday, I attended Sabina Sehgal Saikai’s simple funeral at an electric crematorium near the Nizamuddin Aulia’s shrine. She was charred when they found her in the bombed out room at the Taj Mahal Hotel from where one of her last messages from her mobile phone, as she hid under the bed, said: “They have entered my bathroom.” Why the terrorists bombed her room is not known. But it is fair to surmise that reckless TV journalists gave her location to them with the TRP-linked live coverage. Sabina was a journalist at Times of India and we shared a common interest in Indian classical music. She learnt singing from an Ustaad of the Dagar family. The funeral brought many of her friends together. They ranged from the left to the right of the political spectrum. But she was a singularly liberal intellectual who joined causes such as the defence of artist M.F. Husain against religious fanatics.

Given the range of her friends and the grief Sabina left them with, the funeral became a platform to exchange the dominant theme of the occasion: What was to be done? Film actress Nandita Das was among the mourners that broke into a dozen groups or more, each more worried than the other about what was happening to India. Nandita has just made a film about the social isolation of Muslims in Gujarat. She told me some of her close friends had wondered why she was sympathetic to Muslims, and one of them even asked if she had a Muslim boyfriend. What I know is that she has a Gujarati mother.

Let me share a bit of an email Nandita sent to her friends the day before the funeral. It said: “It hadn’t hit me hard enough till Thursday morning…I have to say, it had very little effect on me. My predictable response was, not again...more people will die, more fear, more prejudice and more hatred. But at some level the response was instant and cerebral. But this morning when I got up things felt different. Got a message from an unknown no: “See what your friends have done.” Strangely a close friend of mine got a similar message last night, but from an acquaintance. Just because Firaaq, my film, deals with how Muslims ‘also’ get affected by violence, the terrorists are supposed to be my friends!

“Today a common young Muslim man around town is probably the most vulnerable. I got many messages from my Muslim friends who feel the need to condemn it more than anyone else, who feel the need to prove their national allegiance in every possible way. They are begging to be not clubbed with the terrorists, a fear not unfounded. Then of course there were tons of messages from well-wishers across the world who asked about me and my loved ones’ safety. I too did the same. And strangely that was when tears started rolling down my cheek, almost involuntarily. Guess the thought that if our loved ones were fine, it’s all ok, seemed like a bizarre way to feel. When will our souls ache when anyone is hurt, even those that we have never seen and will never see? The more I wrote back in sms’s and emails that I was ok, the more miserable I was feeling.”

Nandita’s torment may not be unrelated to the way our democracy has evolved. Here you are an unprecedented terror attack by any global standards, which begins with the elections in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and ends with polls in Congress-ruled Delhi. The outcome will not be known till next week. The BJP doesn’t need Muslim votes but it doesn’t want the Congress to benefit from this indifference either. So it mounts pressure on the Congress, accusing it of being soft on terror (forgetting that it was the BJP government that had freed the man who went on to kill Daniel Pearl).

A newspaper declared on Sunday that the government had been finally jolted from its sleep. How did the newspaper know? The evidence was there for all to see, it said. The government had put back on the table the hanging of Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri convict, sentenced to die for plotting to blow up the 2001 parliament, it says. Will that go an inch in curbing terrorism? The killers of Mumbai seemed quite prepared to die. Guru himself wants to be hanged. So what’s the logic in hastening his death ahead of others who have been languishing on the death row for much longer than him? Some years ago they had hanged Maqbool Butt who became a Kashmiri hero. You can’t have vendetta or prejudice for state policy. It’s a mercy that the women at India Gate are not running the government. Or aren’t they?

INDIA/PAKISTAN: Pleas For Sanity as Sabres Rattle Over Mumbai Mayhem by Beena Sarwar

INDIA/PAKISTAN: Pleas For Sanity as Sabres Rattle Over Mumbai Mayhem

Inter Press Service,
December 1, 2008

INDIA/PAKISTAN: PLEAS FOR SANITY AS SABRES RATTLE OVER MUMBAI MAYHEM

by Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Dec 1 (IPS) - The pattern is all too familiar. Every time India and Pakistan head towards dialogue and detente, something explosive happens that pushes peace to the backburner and drags them back to the familiar old tense relationship, worsened by sabre-rattling war cries from both sides.

The relationship between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours has been marked by tentative ups and plunging downs, particularly over the past decade. This decade is also marked by increasingly vocal voices for peace on both sides of the border who openly criticise their countries’ political and security establishments.

The fallout from the Mumbai mayhem is no different, if all the more ominous for having taken place in the midst of the global ‘war on terror’ with its ‘us versus them’ rhetoric that has contributed to escalated violence around the world and pushed fence-sitters onto one or other side.

On Wednesday a ten-man squad of Islamist warriors armed with assault rifles and hand grenades landed in the port city Mumbai and, after going on shooting spree, seized control of two of its finest luxury hotels and a Jewish centre. By the time commandos neutralised the attackers and lifted the sieges Friday, 200 people lay dead —including 22 foreign hostages.

Pakistan and India are part of the Indian sub-continent. They share a landmass, mountain ranges, rivers and seas, ancient cultures, history, languages and religions. Yet they have fought three wars since gaining independence from the British in 1947, after the bloody partition of the sub-continent into two countries — largely Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan.

The fourth major conflict between the two countries was the Kargil conflict of 1999 that the political leadership on both sides referred to as a ‘war-like situation’. The nuclear threat that underlined this situation drew the world’s attention to India-Pakistan relations, and the festering issue of the disputed state of Kashmir, as never before.

A year earlier, India and Pakistan’s nuclear tests of May 1998 had plunged the region into an unprecedented state of tension. The governments celebrated their nuclear capability, feeding rivalry, jingoism and nationalism on both sides that the media played up. There was far less coverage of those who condemned the tests and the governments’ encouragement of reactionary forces that equated religion with nationhood.

Those who protested were swimming against the tide, labelled as traitors and anti-nationals, and ‘agents’ of the other country, like Islamabad-based physicist A.H. Nayyar who has been active in the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy since the organisation was launched in 1995.

As Nayyar and pro-peace activists addressed a press conference condemning the nuclearisation of the region, charged-up young men who supported Pakistan’s nuclear tests physically attacked them with chairs.

Now, expressing his shock at the "mindless, horrible event" in Mumbai, he told IPS: "There are people in both countries who don’t like efforts towards rapprochement. They take the first opportunity to start blowing the bugles of war and instigate hostility."

The nuclear tests were followed by the historic Lahore Declaration of Feb. 1999, when Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif invited his Indian counterpart A. B. Vajpayee to Lahore.

Two months later, the Kargil conflict dashed all hopes for rapprochement as it transpired that while the governments talked peace, infiltrators from Pakistan were busy grabbing positions in Kargil on the Indian-administered side of the disputed state of Kashmir.

Sharif denied knowledge of the operation, but his army chief Pervez Musharraf insisted that Sharif had been briefed. It took the intervention of then U.S. president Bill Clinton to de-escalate the tension and comple the Pakistani army into making the infiltrators withdraw by July 1999, pulling the countries back from the brink of a nuclear war.

In October, Musharraf ousted Sharif in a military coup. The present composite dialogue process began in 2004 during the Musharraf regime, but India is now dealing with a democratically elected government for the first time in a decade, note observers. They also point out that it is for the first time that a Pakistani government appears to be genuinely attempting to undo the damage done by past policies.

These policies, linked to Washington’s need to pull down the former Soviet Union and drive the Soviet army out of Afghanistan, nurtured religious extremism and armed militancy. Later, these armed, indoctrinated forces, supported by the Pakistani establishment, fuelled the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir and led to the worst sectarian violence in Pakistan.

The third phase came after ‘9/11’ when Pakistan officially rejected these ‘Islamic warriors’.

As the Pakistan government now tries to formulate new security paradigms while also combating the terror menace at home, it needs support, say observers. "For the first time, it feels like we are at war," says a Karachi-based analyst asking not to be named. "Under Musharraf, it was a game to show the Americans that we are taking action but actually continuing to nurture some militant elements against India."

"With the threat of global communism gone, and the need for Middle East energy primary, America suddenly recognises India as an ally against Islamism, and Pakistan becomes a buffer to be squeezed relentlessly," commented Vithal Rajan in Hyderabad, India who works with several civil society organizations. "The Indian government in relief at winning American friendship has fallen in with this ploy, further distancing itself from the fledgling democracy of Pakistan, and leaving no real solution in sight."

Mumbai was still burning when Rajan wrote to civil society activists in Pakistan and India on Nov. 28 urging them not to "just be reactive like the popular press" but take a more thoughtful view of the situation.

Angry condemnations "lead us nowhere; political demands (may) make vote-catching politicians rethink strategies, but these might remain ineffectual. (We) should create space… to think things out in the long term…

"...[Lal Krishna] Advani has called this attack in Mumbai by a few terrorists as ‘a war.’ This is dangerous stuff and nonsense. A war is fought between sovereign countries, not between the police and criminals. It is in India’s interest and in Pakistan’s interest to have stable, progressive governments."

Advani, who is opposition leader in Indian parliament and represents the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has repeatedly accused the ruling Congress party, which professes to be secular, of allowing India to turn into a ‘soft state’ in the face of a series of deadly bombings in Indian cities, this year, that have been attributed to Islamist groups.

Pakistan’s new civilian government has, however, been making attempts to step out of the familiar well-worn grooves, note observers. President Asif Ali Zardari, for example, has signalled major policy shifts by terming the militants in Kashmir as "terrorists", stating that India is not Pakistan’s enemy, and then declaring that Pakistan had adopted a "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons.

Participating via satellite link in the prestigious ‘Leadership Summit’ conducted by India’s prestigious ‘Hindustan Times’ newspaper, on Nov. 22, four days before the attack on Mumbai, Zardari quoted his late wife Benazir Bhutto to say that there is a ‘’little bit of India in every Pakistani and a little bit of Pakistan in every Indian’’. Bhutto was assassinated by suicide bombers, last year, while on election campaign.

The religious right in Pakistan — and its supporters within the establishment — is clearly unhappy at Zardari’s peace overtures towards India. Militants involved in fighting the state on Pakistan’s north-west border have announced a stepping up of efforts to assassinate Pakistan’s political leadership.

Pakistan and India’s fights against extremism "will founder if fought alone," noted the young Britain-based Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid in a recent op-ed in the Guardian, London, warning that India’s rush to implicate Pakistan is a "dangerous mistake". "The impulse to implicate Pakistan is of course understandable: the past is replete with examples of Pakistani and Indian intelligence agencies working to destabilise the historical enemy across the border."

Many analysts believe it is too soon to pin the blame on anyone. "To take on the government of a country of 1.2 billion just like that is unbelievably stupid," says Nayyar in Islamabad, referring to the handful of youngsters who held Mumbai hostage for three days. "If it is the work of a fringe group then it is very alarming that the states are getting worked up to this extent.

"But if the perpetrators were part of an organised group, then it is also very alarming. We need to sit down and do our homework all over again and see how such groups can be contained, or we will all perish."

Beyond India and Pakistan, the global activist group Avaaz.org is launching a message calling for unity following the attacks in Mumbai, to be published in newspapers across India and Pakistan and delivered to political leaders within one week.

"The message is that these tactics have failed and we are more united than ever. And we are determined to work together to stop violent extremism, and call on our political and religious leaders to so the same. If these attacks cause us to turn on each other in hatred and conflict, the terrorists will have won."

Telegraph: Why there is no oust-outsiders movement in Calcutta

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081123/jsp/calcutta/story_10148584.jsp

Bongs and others

Why there is no oust-outsiders movement in Calcutta

When Raj Thackeray thunders “Marathi manasa jaga ho (Wake up Marathis)”, Mumbai burns and butchers. And India shakes. When Aamra Bangali called “Bangali jago”, it was greeted with the riposte: “Kancha ghum bhangaiben na” (Do not disturb, our sleep is still light)”. Or, perhaps more tellingly, “Halum” (the tiger’s roar), from the cheeky Bengali who thought too much fuss was being made of waking up. Calcutta and Mumbai share the feature of hosting a large number of migrants, but the eastern metropolis has never been riven in half by a movement like what Thackeray senior and junior have unleashed on the western tip. “If someone tries to create this kind of trouble here, the people will drive him out of the city and throw him into the Bay of Bengal,” says Barry O’Brien, quizmaster and MLA, with a laugh. It’s not just the high migrant population that Calcutta shares with Mumbai. Like the Marathi, the Bengali has no place at the high table of business. The money in Calcutta is in the hands of Marwaris and Gujaratis — and has been so traditionally. Unlike Mumbai, however, Calcutta is very much an economically depressed city where opportunities are few and the competition that much harder. That should be an additional ground for a movement like Amra Bangali to strike roots in. Or for politicians of other parties to water, just as the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s outfit do in Mumbai by treating Raj with kid gloves for fear of losing Marathi votes. Why is it then that Calcutta, with possibly more reasons for turning inward and intolerant, and Bengal have not produced a Bal or Raj Thackeray clone? “Calcutta has a lot of practice in living with people from various communities. It was the capital of British India and was always looked upon as the gateway to the East. Historically, it has attracted people from various backgrounds in search of a living. And the situation hasn’t changed in the 20th century,” says Abhijit Gupta, who teaches English at Jadavpur University. If Calcutta is seen as the gateway to the East, Mumbai is the Gateway to India. Mumbai’s cosmopolitanism is perhaps greater than any other Indian city’s — and it has a history longer than any other’s. More people have, and do so every day, set out for Mumbai in search of a living than they do for Calcutta. But Calcutta has its benefits. “The city is so open. No one ever called us Bhaiya even when we arrived here. This city has made me what I am today,” says stage actress and director Usha Ganguli. True. But Bengalis still call Marwaris Meros and Maarus, Oriyas Ures and BiharisKhottas. And all the people of the world outside Bengal “non-Bengalis”. Us and the rest. The rest are funny Does the key to Calcutta’s tolerance reside in this bubble of superiority? Some argue that there is no ill will in this posturing. “We may call a Marwari a Mero, but it’s done in jest,” says writer Nabarun Bhattacharya. Many have faith in the nature of Bengali culture. “Bangaliana hasn’t developed by excluding other cultures. Our conception of the other is perhaps not that strong. It cannot be turned into hatred. Even as we make fun of a Khotta or an Ure, it looks more like an instance of humour based on a deep-seated sense of difference. Using this as humour and using it as a basis for antagonism are two completely different things,” says sociologist Prasanta Roy. The argument is that it’s difficult to feel malice towards someone who’s the butt of your jokes. They’re inferior and, therefore, not fit to be the object of your anger or frustration. Does it explain the surprise so-called outsiders express when confronted with the question: do you feel threatened in Calcutta? “I have heard people from outside complain of the traffic and other things, but never of being made to feel like an outsider. The city grows on you,” says Jimmy Tangree, a radio professional. It’s the city of preference for that very vulnerable community: Kashmiris, who feel unsafe in almost all of India outside their beautiful valley. Abid, who’s been in Calcutta for 15 years, has a shop on Free School Street where he sells Kashmiri shawls. “I can’t speak Bengali, but I can understand it very well. I have a business in Delhi too, but I prefer Calcutta. It’s not easy for Kashmiris to live in any part of the country. But Calcutta is so nice — my parents are also at ease when I’m here,” he says. When a Kashmiri sells Kashmiri shawls in Calcutta, he’s not usurping a Bengali’s position and denying him of a livelihood opportunity. In other words, he has a competitive advantage that is difficult for a Bengali to achieve. Isn’t it expected of Sudam Pyne, a driver in a private firm, to be resentful of his Bihari and UP-ite fellow workers who may be occupying a position his brother or cousin could take? Silent disdain “Why would I resent them? These people have come so far from their homes and work so hard,” says Pyne. Does that mean that the Bengali is completely tolerant? Of course not. Filmmaker and artist Devashish Makhija, whose family came to Calcutta from Pakistan and who is more than often not mistaken for a Bengali whose correctly spelt surname should be Mukherjee, remembers the silent disdain the Bengalis would direct at the Marwari boys at school. “They would form separate groups for football and I would shuttle between the two groups.” The cultural divide was there to be exploited to suit political motives but was not. “One reason the Aamra Bangali movement did not find acceptance was the presence of well-established political parties. The Communist movement was there since the 20s and many of the founding fathers of the Indian National Congress were Bengali. Thus they were firmly rooted and offered a secure, viable political option. Aamra Bangali’s level of small (narrow-minded) politics just did not have any political space to occupy,” says Roy. In Calcutta and its outskirts, it was often the migrant Bihari jute mill worker who became a Communist convert earlier than the Bengali babu. The so-called urban underclass — that is Bal and Raj Thackeray’s Marathi army in Mumbai — was not only not always Bengali but had been integrated into mainline politics, irrespective of cultural/language differences. The Congress, though its influence among the working class was undermined by the Communists fairly early in Bengal, has never behaved like a party of Bengalis. Both the main parties, and later Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress, have desisted from taking the path of wounded regionalism. When they did — during much of Jyoti Basu’s time in power — it was more a cry of economic discrimination aimed at Delhi rather than an attack on the migrant population in Bengal. “The fact that there is a socialist party in power has helped,” says interior designer Ajay Issar. “Raj Thackeray’s politics wouldn’t survive in Bengal, where inclusive politics involving migrants is a better strategy, as the CPM has proved time and again by using the refugee community from Bangladesh. Vote banks in Bengal are formed along the lines of poverty,” he adds. Even along the lines of affluence there were never any cracks. Although a majority of the business is owned by “non-Bengalis”, there has never been any organised political move to turn this into an “oust-so-and-so” movement. If businessmen earlier backed the Congress, now they have split loyalties. The Bengali may feel jealous of the moneyed Marwari and the gilded Gujarati — and may even be as communal as anyone else — but at a subterranean level, he hasn’t been able to find a political mouthpiece. Pankaj Parekh, a Gujarati jeweller who was born and brought up in Calcutta, says: “It (businesses) offers good job openings to the Bengalis and the Bengalis realise and accept that.” Not being “money-minded”, which used to be the equivalent of “business-minded”, was — but no longer is — considered a mark of the Bengali’s “cultured, intellectual” self. Roy, the sociologist, argues: “The son-of-the-soil movement finds acceptance in Maharashtra because it is manipulating the sentiments of the working class. This is the class that is economically vulnerable, facing what it perceives as a tangible threat and is thus easily motivated. Bengalis are not that easy to motivate.” He should probably have added that the urban Bengali, who doesn’t aspire to working-class status anyway; is hard to motivate along parochial lines. The CPM or Mamata has never found motivation a problem. But both have brought people out in the streets for political reasons, however disruptive. Which is why not only did the Aamra Bangali effort fail but even celebrity author Sunil Ganguly’s suggestion to write billboards and signs in Bengali found little support, unlike in such “cosmopolitan” cities as Bangalore, not to speak of Hyderabad. So if you don’t have Raj Thackeray here, thank Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mamata Banerjee. Nanos may come and go, but “non-Bengali” Ratan Tata is welcome to set up residence here if Raj Thackeray makes things too hot for him in Mumbai. And this time, there won’t be any disputes, we can assure him. Let’s say halum to that, in greeting.

POULOMI BANERJEE AND MALINI BANERJEE

Right to convert and Indian constitution by Justice K. T. Thomas.

THE SIXTH STANLEY SAMARTHA MEMORIAL LECTURE

Delivered by Justice K.T.THOMAS, former Judge of Supreme Court of India October 4, 2007, St. Mark’s Cathedral, Bangalore

Right to convert and the Indian Constitution

Management lessons from the Moon- Comments & Analysis-Opinion-The Economic Times

Management lessons from the Moon- Comments & Analysis-Opinion-The Economic Times

Op-Ed of New age -Saeed Naqvi

Op-Ed
Reviving a shared culture
Relaxation of Indo-Pak relations works miraculously as a soothener on people both sides of the border. Remember the refrain of Indians who had returned from Pakistan after watching a cricket match in Lahore some year ago: �We have never experienced such hospitality.� These are tougher times: Pakistan finds itself at war with its own people; India is heating up for elections. But slowly and surely a shared culture will be a soothener,
writes Saeed Naqvi

Himal Southasian/Pakistan's westward drift

Himal Southasian/Pakistan's westward drift

Hindu fundamentals are under attack-SHASHI ON SUNDAY-Shashi Tharoor-Columnists-Opinion-The Times of India

Hindu fundamentals are under attack-SHASHI ON SUNDAY-Shashi Tharoor-Columnists-Opinion-The Times of India

Pankaj Mishra asks whether a new president will maintain current American militarism | Books | The Guardian

Pankaj Mishra asks whether a new president will maintain current American militarism | Books | The Guardian

t r u t h o u t | The Great Switch: Banks Rob People

t r u t h o u t | The Great Switch: Banks Rob People

Islam Watch - "Ramadan Jihad and Scholarly Ignorance" by MA Khan

Islam Watch - "Ramadan Jihad and Scholarly Ignorance" by MA Khan

Asian Age October 2, WHY EVERYBODY LOVES A GOOD STEREOTYPE - by Antara Dev Sen

The Asian Age
October 2, 2008



"You support terrorists?" my friend was horror-struck.

"We can’t presume they are terrorists," I begin, "there must be a trial first."

"Rubbish! They are terrorists! And it’s indefensible that Jamia Milia University is using government money to protect them."

"Everyone is entitled to legal aid and is innocent until proven guilty..."

"They are guilty. The police nabbed them."

"That’s the police version…"

My friend, a secular and sensitive writer, is mortified. "The terrorists shot an officer dead! But you still won’t believe them?"

"You believe police ‘encounters’?"

"Certainly. You don’t?"

"Maybe, if they’re credible."

"Why won’t you believe the police?"

"It would have been easier to believe the cops if they didn’t offer several versions of the same ‘encounter’, if they could find the bullets that killed Inspector M.C. Sharma and the gun that fired them, or answer the questions locals and activists are throwing at them punching holes in their theories, if fake ‘encounter’ killings like Sohrabuddin’s and his wife’s were not fresh in our minds…"

"A police officer is killed, and you side with the terrorists!"

"No, a life cut short is tragic — especially for the family. But two boys were also killed in the shootout. Terrorists? Prove it. Sharma did have a reputation — remember his killing ‘terrorists’ in a fake encounter at Ansal Plaza?"

"He faked his own killing, you say?"

With bombs going off every few days and our threat perception spiralling, it’s not easy to root for civil rights. Logic and ethics get all tangled up as fear spooling out of bombed markets and grieving neighbourhoods flood your senses. Where does one draw the line between safeguarding human rights and supporting terrorism? How much of our rationality and morals are we ready to barter for some more security? Would it really buy safety or are we being manipulated into fighting others’ battles? Conversely, are we bending over backwards so much to protect civil rights that we can’t see the obvious?

For example, you can’t deny that there is Muslim terrorism in India. We are not immune to the global virus, especially since some neighbours have been diligently breeding it for us. And it is naive to pretend that all Muslim terrorism in India is retaliation against discrimination and abuse, or to romanticise the murder of innocents.

But to prop up Muslims as the enemy, or suggest that every Muslim is a potential terrorist, is ridiculous. For decades, we have faced terrorism from non-Muslims, from Punjab to the Northeast to the recent rash of terror across India by Maoists or Hindutva extremists. We have lost one Prime Minister to Sikh killers and one to Hindu terrorists. And lost thousands of lives to Muslim militants, from Jammu and Kashmir to the Mumbai blasts.

Yet the trend today is to equate terrorism with Islam. Take Delhi. Every recent bomb blast has been blamed on Muslims — the attack on the Red Fort in December 2000 and on Parliament in December 2001, the Diwali blasts of October 2005, the serial blasts of September 13, 2008, and the blast last Saturday. Even though 15,000 clerics had congregated in February at Darul Uloom Deoband, the Muslim seminary in Uttar Pradesh whose alumni include the Taliban, and denounced terrorism as anti-Islam.

We love stereotypes. So while parading the three suspects in the Delhi blasts — middle class kids, two of whom are students of the Jamia Milia Islamia University — instead of the hood to protect their identity, the police wrapped brand new red Palestinian scarves around their heads, revealing only their eyes, like Hamas militants. Manipulating the perception of the Muslim as terrorist, or the terrorist as Muslim, was easy.

Religious profiling has been part of our anti-terrorism drive, and with their socio-political deprivations, Muslims are easy targets. According to the Sachar Committee Report, only 59 per cent of Muslims are literate and their participation in governance is severely limited: only 4 per cent in the IPS, 3 per cent in the IAS, barely 1.8 per cent in the IFS, etc. Marginalised for long, Muslims are now being pushed dangerously close to the edge.

Apart from violating the constitutional guarantee of equality, religious profiling hinders the fight against terror. It diverts attention from those who are tangibly linked to terrorism but do not fit the religious profile. So stereotypes about Muslim terrorists make us ignore State-sponsored Hindu terrorism like in Gujarat, where justice was so beyond reach that the Supreme Court had to transfer the 2002 "riot" cases outside of the state. Or the continuing terror attacks on Christians in Orissa (about 50 killed in Kandhamal this time), and Karnataka by Hindu extremists. Bajrang Dal activists have been found making bombs, like in Kanpur a month ago. Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad found them making bombs in Nanded in 2006 and also recovered a false beard, moustache and sherwani. This Hindu group had bombed three mosques since 2003. Once free from stereotypes, the police can efficiently counter terror.

But stereotyping terrorists is easier. We remember the jailing and torture of Iftikhar Gilani, Delhi bureau chief of Kashmir Times, for almost seven months, before intense lobbying by the media and politicians got him released in January 2003. Similarly, Tariq Ahmed Dar, a young Kashmiri model, was jailed for several months in 2006, as a "Pakistani spy". He was released after intervention by the media and top politicians. In August, cops picked up Milan Molla, a tea-shop owner in Kolkata, threatening to brand him a terrorist unless he paid up Rs 150,000. His mother paid part of it with borrowed money, freed him and went public with a complaint. Every year, there are dozens of such cases. Given that young Muslim men are routinely targeted in the name of fighting terrorism, Jamia’s decision to provide legal aid to its students is perhaps essential.

"But would Jamia have provided this support if the boys were accused of rape?" exclaimed my friend. Maybe not. But then, being accused of a crime against an individual is not the same as being charged with a crime against the nation. The loyalty of Indian Muslims is regularly questioned — from India-Pakistan cricket matches to national politics. In a terrified society, officially branding them anti-national would be easy. To prevent our strained social fabric from falling apart, we need to pursue the truth, not myths, and protect civil rights. That does not make us supporters of terrorism, it helps us curb it.

Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at: sen@littlemag.com

Look who hijacked Jamia - Arif Mohammad Khan

Look who hijacked Jamia

Himal Southasian/Pakistan's westward drift

Himal Southasian/Pakistan's westward drift

Violence_in_Kandhamal - Socio_economic_factors_by_Basudev_Mahapatra

Violence_in_Kandhamal_Socio_economic_factors_by_Basudev_Mahapatra/ www.hotnhitnews.com / Issue based News Portal from Orissa, India

Tehelka - Shortage of Ag labor due NREGA

Tehelka - India's Independent Weekly News Magazine

The Telegraph - Calcutta - The blindness of bigots

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinion | The blindness of bigots

Politics and play
THE BLINDNESS OF BIGOTS - Education is no bar against a dangerously selective view of facts
Ramachandra Guha
The Telegraph
Politics and play
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080913/jsp/opinion/story_9818858.jsp

Honouring humanity
The internet is, among other things, a vehicle for egotism and bad taste. In blogs and emails, some people tend to express themselves more freely, that is to say more crudely, than they would in letters sent by post or in signed articles in the press.

In June this year, I received an email from a young man objecting to a passage in an essay I had recently published. This argued that while Muslim and Christian bigotry were visibly on the rise in India, because of the fact that Hindus constituted four-fifths of the country’s population, Hindu bigots were more dangerous. To this argument the young man replied: “Diversity is all fine but a country needs to have something to unify it... Moslems [sic] can continue to breed and swell, and that is all OK. They can kill us without reason because we are a secular country, and after all they are not as fanatic, you see. I have to keep silent when the mullah across the street uses vitriolic language against the Hindus. But then, you would never have heard sermons at the mosque, would you? Have you ever heard of such language in a temple? Considering that you visit one?”

The young man then went on: “Sir, the world is not around your armchair, or what you read in the news. Get out and go around the people you are so sympathetic about. They consider themselves Moslems first, Indians next. I know of friends who openly sided with the Pakistani army during the Kargil war. But you wouldn’t want to talk of that. You would rather talk of having a Moslem general, right?”

In his mail, the young man also claimed that “except for a few violent spells, and very few, the Hindus have largely remained non-violent except when provoked by the Muslim community. Why is that everyone talks of post-Godhra, but nothing of those who were burnt alive in the train by the Muslim mob? You will realize the reason why people stand by [Narendra] Modi. He may not be the most ideal person, but it is better to support a person who will protect us than side with someone who doles out benefits to those so ill-deserving of them.”

In replying to this mail, I suggested that it was “a shame that a well educated man like you has not just swallowed the innuendos, half-truths, and prejudices of the RSS types, but also that you speak in the same hectoring, intolerant voice….[P]lease do rid yourself of such bigotry. I am sure you are more human than that.”

I then explained my own political philosophy in these words: “I am a liberal for whom decency and democracy comes first, even before patriotism (which is why I abhor what we are doing in [promoting a military dictatorship in] Burma). I have no party affiliation — within India, my only allegiance is to the Indian Constitution.... Since you ask, the reason why, in India, Hindu bigotry is more dangerous than Islamic bigotry is simple — we are 85 per cent of the population.”

I then urged the young man to “get out of this black and white, conspiratorial way of thinking (as in imputing motives to those who disagree with you).” I also asked him to “think carefully” about the larger argument of my original article — which was that “the Sangh Parivar’s unacknowledged model is mullahdom. Do we want to make India a Hindu Pakistan?”

I received no answer. Then, six weeks later, another mail from the same man landed in my inbox. A series of bombs had been planted in crowded places in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. “Now that the nation is under attack from the very people you were defending [sic],” wrote my correspondent, “what do you have to say now? After all you place humanitarian values over patriotism, right? You said that Hindu fundamentalism was more dangerous. Unfortunately, Hindus are taking a lot of crap while the Government sleeps on POTA and other anti-terror laws.”

The young man continued: “No, but it is only the few Mozzies who are a problem. Don’t consider the rest who stand around watching the whole show without protesting, who don’t care a damn for internal reforms within their community, who don’t see anything wrong in bombing innocent people in the name of Jihad.”

He then concluded: “Mr Guha, if the recent events have not woken you up out of your slumber, nothing else will. God save this country from intellectuals, self-professed and otherwise. Meanwhile, you can write another article in your sympathezing [sic] magazines about how Hindu fundamentalism is the cause for all that you see around you.”

I should be inured to such mails by now, but truth be told, it is still unnerving to be at the receiving end of such personal hostility. How can a man have such hatred and animosity for someone he has never met or seen? That said, the anger against me paled in comparison with the anger against the one hundred million and more citizens of India who happen to be born into the Muslim faith. These one hundred million and more sovereign individuals, each with their own distinct lives, careers, hopes and fears, were here portrayed as a single, aggregate, unpatriotic, and ever-threatening mass. The language was in shockingly poor taste; as in the use of that derogatory phrase, “Mozzies”.

When the first mail arrived, what struck me was the abusive tone; when the second one came, what came to mind instead was how utterly irrelevant it was. Many Indians, and most of them Hindus, had just fallen victim to a terrorist attack. Rather than express concern for the dead, or their grieving families, my correspondent’s first thought was to get even with a writer with whom he had previously had a contentious exchange. The deaths and injuries of his fellow Indians, his fellow Hindus, were of no concern to him. All he could think of was his own vindication. Had not the bombs proved once again that the Muslims, all Muslims, were rascals after all?

In his first mail, the correspondent had introduced himself as having a postgraduate degree, and a job (as I recall) in a pharmaceutical company. Clearly, a little learning is a very dangerous thing. His education notwithstanding, his mails marked the young man out as a bigot. A bigot is one who selects, from the world around him, only those facts or half-facts which confirm and strengthen him in his bigotry. Thus, when an Israeli air-strike kills civilians in the Gaza Strip, the partisan of Hamas thinks not of the dead or the injured, but of how he can use the incident to convince himself (and his people) that the only way to treat the Zionists is to collectively exterminate them. In the same manner, al Qaida would have welcomed the pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, as a confirmation of their belief that Hindus — all Hindus—were never to be trusted.

As it happens, I live in Bangalore, and was in the city when the bombs here exploded. And, quite by accident, I visited Ahmedabad the week after the blasts there (to attend a meeting scheduled much earlier). Fortunately, in both cities the citizens held their nerve. I was heartened by the response of the Amdavadis in particular. Heeding the lessons of 2002, they treated this latest incident not as an ‘attack’ but as a tragedy. The talk was not of retribution or revenge, but of attending to the injured and of keeping the peace. The Gujarati press, which had incited the mobs in 2002, was now very restrained. This time, at least, the citizens of Gujarat had honourably placed humanity above bigotry. Would that all Indians, all the time, act on the same principle and in the same way.

A Psalm of Life - Longfellow

A Psalm of Life - Longfellow

The good that madrasas do goes unnoticed - Joginder Sikand

The good that madrasas do goes unnoticed
The good that madrasas do goes unnoticed

September 05, 2008

Madrasas are a central feature of Muslim societies the world over, although the forms they have taken vary considerably. The word madrasa is derived from the Arabic word dars, which means 'class' or 'lesson', and, as such, refers to any institution for learning, whether strictly secular, wholly religious or a mix of both. That, indeed, is how the term is still understood in the Arabic-speaking world.

In contemporary South Asia, however, madrasas have come to be understood as institutions geared specifically to the provision of Islamic religious learning, and which aim at producing religious specialists, such as imams and preachers in mosques and teachers for madrasas and maktabs or mosque schools. Even the roughest estimates for the number of madrasas in India vary considerably, but a figure of over 30,000, including the larger dar ul-ulums and jamias and the smaller madrasas, does not seem quite off the mark.

They play an important role in Muslim education, but yet their importance must not be exaggerated. Contrary to what is often alleged, not all or even most Muslim children study in madrasas. According to the recently-released report of the Sachar Commission, hardly three per cent of Muslim children of school-going age study in full-time madrasas. The rest 97 per cent study in regular schools and/or attend part-time madrasas or else do not study in any institutions, whether schools or madrasas, at all.

In pre-colonial India, madrasas served as major centres for learning, and India's madrasas, some of them richly patronised by ruling elites, were recognised as among the best in the world. True to the strictly Quranic understanding of knowledge ('ilm) as an integrated whole, not recognising any strict division between the 'religious' and the 'secular', a wide range of subjects were taught in these madrasas. These included what are now conventionally understood as 'religious' subjects, such as the Quran, the Hadith (narrations about or attributed to the Prophet Muhammad), Tafsir or Quranic commentary, Fiqh or Muslim jurisprudence, and Arabic grammar, but also what were called 'rational' ('aqli) subjects such as mathematics, science, philosophy, engineering, astronomy, history, medicine and so on.

The medium of instruction in these early Indian madrasas, particularly in north India, was mainly Persian, which was also generally the court language. Because of the structure of the curriculum, madrasa graduates, not just in India but elsewhere, too, made impressive contributions to the development of various sciences in the era before the advent of European colonialism. In much of pre-colonial north India India, larger madrasas often catered to the elites, including Muslims as well as many 'upper' caste Hindus, who then went on to man the administrative apparatus of various local rulers.

With the overthrow of the Mughals and the establishment of the British Raj, a sea-change overcame the madrasas of India. Since English was now the court language and Muslim law was replaced by Anglo-Saxon law, the products of the madrasas could no longer aspire for careers in the government services, unlike earlier. The new economy demanded new skills, such as fluency in the English language and in new disciplines introduced by the British. This gave rise to a sharp dualism in Muslim education, and one that continues to persist till this day. Muslim elites began sending their sons to English-medium schools run by Christian missionaries and the government, for this was the major avenue for career advancement in the new system.

Once mainly the preserve of Muslim elites, madrasas now became the bastion of mainly poorer class Muslims who could not afford to send their children to other schools. Today, the vast majority of madrasas cater to the poor Muslims, providing their children free boarding and lodging and charging them no fees. At the same time, the education they provide ensures them of a job, although most often low-paying, as a religious functionary as well as respect and esteem in a society that greatly values religious learning.

The establishment of colonial rule thus brought along with a radical transformation of the class-character of the madrasa students, and this was accompanied by an equally significant change in the focus and curriculum of the madrasas. Since 'worldly' subjects were now taught in regular schools and universities, madrasas no longer felt the need to pay much attention to these, unlike before, and so they restricted themselves essentially to disciplines that came to be seen as strictly 'religious'.

It was not that the ulema or Islamic scholars associated with the madrasas, were opposed to these subjects, as is sometimes alleged, for, as mentioned earlier, in pre-colonial times madrasas had indeed taught these disciplines. They did not insist, as is sometimes alleged, that all Muslims must send their children only to madrasas and train them as maulvis. Rather, what the ulema stressed was that those Muslims who wanted their children to learn these subjects could send them to regular schools instead of to madrasas, while madrasas would focus mainly on 'religious' subjects for those who wanted to become religious specialists. In a sense, therefore, this was a pragmatic division of labour.

There was another reason why madrasas came to specialise almost wholly in disciplines narrowly conceived as 'religious' at this historical juncture, which largely continues even today. As the ulema saw it, British rule and the social, cultural and religious changes that it brought in its wake posed an immense challenge and threat to traditional Muslim culture, beliefs and institutions and to the tradition of Islamic learning. Hence, they argued, in order to protect, preserve and promote these it was essential for a class of religious specialists to be produced through the madrasas whose major task would be to maintain Islamic learning and commitment in their capacity of madrasa teachers and mosque imams and preachers.

Were the students of madrasas to be also taught 'modern' secular subjects along with the traditional 'religious' subjects, it was felt that the burden would be simply too much to bear and that, therefore, they would be good in neither. It was also felt that teaching English and other such 'modern' subjects might cause their students to choose not to become madrasas teachers or mosque preachers but, instead, to seek better-paid employment in the new economy, and this would severely undermine the very purpose of the madrasas.

Related to this was the understanding that religious education was to be pursued solely for the sake of winning God's pleasure, of communicating His message to others and of hope for comfort in the eternal life to come after death. It was not for the sake of training students for worldly success. Hence, a general consensus seemed to prevail that 'modern', 'secular' subjects should be kept out of the madrasa system wholly or else be accommodated only to a strict minimum. This constituted a radical break from past precedent, where, as has been noted, pre-colonial madrasas did include such disciplines in their curriculum.

Today, many madrasas continue to remain focussed almost wholly on subjects thus narrowly inscribed as 'religious', and their rationale remains the same as in the colonial period. At the same time, though, there are signs of considerable change in ulema circles, a fact that is often not noticed or appreciated by critics. The ulema continue to stress that the primary purpose of the madrasas is to train religious specialists and that, hence, the focus of their curriculum should remain what are described as 'religious' subjects. This argument has considerable merit and is an adequate reply to those who question why madrasas do not fully secularise their syllabus. Since, the ulema rightly argue, the madrasas aim at preparing Islamic scholars, not, say, doctors or engineers, there is no reason why they should teach their students science or other such 'secular' or 'modern' disciplines beyond a point.

Yet, and this is evident in the writings of numerous ulema, they are also recognising the need for their students to have at least a modicum of knowledge of and familiarity with 'secular' subjects, such as English, Hindi, various regional languages, science, mathematics, history, geography and so on. This, they argue, would enable their students to adjust to the wider world and not feel as aliens therein at the same time as it would make them more efficient and effective in their future role of religious specialists.

Accordingly, a number of madrasas have started making arrangements for teaching such subjects to their students at the junior level, without this being allowed to negatively impact on the 'religious' component of the syllabus. Other madrasas have introduced a rule allowing admission to only those students who have completed a basic 'secular' education, and yet others allow for their senior students to simultaneously pursue degrees in regular universities.

In Kerala [Images], the madrasa system has been adjusted in such a way as to allow Muslim children to attend them early in the mornings or late in the evenings and regular school for the rest of the day. A small number of madrasas are working with NGOs, including non-Muslim organisations, to incorporate some 'secular' education in their curriculum, while some others have also introduced some sorts of technical education as well.

For vast numbers of Muslim children from desperately poor families madrasas thus serve as the only available avenue of education and of upward social mobility, and an increasing number of them are also providing them some sort of 'secular' education as well. As the ulema often point out, the voluntary services of the madrasas, generally provided completely free of cost, saves the public exchequer a huge amount of money, but yet their services in this regard, far from being appreciated, are generally reviled by those who have little or no understanding of the madrasa system.

This, is of course, not to argue that all is well with the madrasas and that there is no room for introspection or reform. Indeed, among the most vocal advocates of madrasa reform (defined variously) today are leading ulema themselves.

Today, through a concerted propaganda campaign certain forces are desperately seeking to run down the madrasas, brand them as centres of 'obscurantism' and even as 'dens of terror'. Indeed, so pervasive has this logic become that public discussions of the madrasas are now largely located within the discursive framework of alleged security implications of the madrasas. Madrasas, in the non-Muslim mass media, are now viewed mainly through 'security' lens, and, in this way, their positive contributions -- their role in providing free mass education, particularly to the poor, their central role of preserving, protecting and transmitting the Islamic religious and cultural tradition and even the key role of numerous madrasas and their ulema in India's anti-colonial struggle -- are being deliberately sought to be denied and invisiblised.

Hounded in this way by the media, anti-Muslim political forces and even by powerful elements within the State apparatus, the madrasas, like other Muslim institutions, are being increasingly forced on the defensive. This is further driving them into the ghettos into which they have been confined, making hopes of and prospects for reform even more remote and the voices of progressive ulema, many of whom, contrary to media depictions, do exist, even less appealing to their colleagues than they otherwise would have been.

Instead of deliberately targeting and alienating the ulema of the madrasas, who continue to exercise an important role in influencing Muslim public opinion, wisdom demands that concerted efforts be made, by the State, NGOs and the media, to dialogue with them on a host of issues of common concern. This is hardly impossible, contrary to what might be imagined, as the major role of numerous ulema of the madrasas (even of such 'conservative' ones like the Dar ul-Ulum at Deoband, India's largest Islamic seminary) in the anti-colonial struggle and the struggle for a united India clearly illustrates.

Dr Yoginder Sikand is the editor of Qalandar, an electronic magazine on Islam-related issues, and also an author of several books on the subject

Identity by Shabana Azmi

Guest Essay in Hindustan Times
Identity by Shabana Azmi
August 24, 2008

Things very rarely catch me by surprise any more. Yet I am taken completely unawares by the viciousness of the attack against me for a remark I made in a recent television interview that I was denied a house in Mumbai because I am a Muslim. I am being called ungrateful, wretched and even a liar. But these are the same people who applauded me and called me a hero when I took on Imam Bukhari.

A few years ago, Imam Bukhari had given a fatwa to Indian Muslims to go to Afghanistan and wage jehad. In an outraged response, I had said on a TV programme that I would request the Prime Minister (at that time Atal Bihari Vajpayee) to air-drop Imam Bukhari into Khandahar so he could be the first to wage his jehad — this would solve his problem and ours too.

So infuriated was the Imam that he called me unprintable names as well as a kafir and a blot on the Muslim community.

It remains for me a matter of the highest honour that both Houses of Parliament issued a statement condemning the Imam's utterance.

I was moved to tears and my heart burst with pride. It gave me the much required ammunition and strengthened my resolve to never keep quiet in the face of outbursts by fundamentalist elements.

Each time I take on the Muslim fundamentalist, I am applauded and hailed as a moderate liberal Muslim. But I am more than just that. I am a moderate liberal Indian and am very proud of being so.

India has one of the finest Constitutions in the world.

The Constitution provides for all her citizens, irrespective of class, caste or gender to demand their rights within its framework without fear and with authority.

In the same interview that has become the subject of such mud-slinging, I have also stated that the Indian Muslim feels safer in India than elsewhere because he has a stake and a space in the country's democracy. An ordinary Muslim can aspire to become the President of India, a Shah Rukh Khan or an Irfan Pathan. That the time has come for Muslims to stop looking at themselves, only as victims and do some soul-searching on the need for reform within the community.
Why then does only one remark get pulled out of the interview and become the subject of such acrimony?

Would it not be fair to assume that implicit in this hue and cry is the desire to shut up the liberal voice and demand of Muslims who are successful, to be good Uncle Toms? Have I ever been asked to apologise to men when I've talked about discrimination against women? Have I been asked to apologise to the rich because I've talked about the need to alleviate poverty?

Of course discrimination exists in some sections of our society — against all kinds of minorities; religious (look at what routinely happens with the Dalits), against women (for God's sake we are killing our girl child even before she is born), against homosexuals (Section 377 of the penal code treats them like criminals).

What is the point in denying it? We need to bring these issues in the open and draw courage from the fact that there are also very robust resistance groups in all sections of our society that are opposing this tooth and nail so there is absolutely no cause for despair.

India is a country of contradictions. It is equally true that a Dalit can aspire to be a Mayawati (perhaps the most formidable politician today), a woman can aspire to be the Prime Minister or President, and that the Hindi film industry is being virtually ruled by the Khans.

Alas, it is also true that I was denied a flat in cosmopolitan Mumbai because Javed and I are Muslims - it was not because we are film people - a very famous film star lives in the same society. It was not because we are non-vegetarians - the family we were to buy it from were
themselves non-vegetarians. It was, we were told, by a shame-faced broker because we were Muslim! It happened not once but twice. It didn't come as a big surprise either because we knew of several people who had had similar experiences.

This is why I find it so curious that so many people are reacting now as if this is some earth-shattering revelation. A TV channel, not so long ago, had carried an entire sting operation where a young couple posing as house-hunters were clearly told that they could not be given a house in the locality of their choice because they were Muslim. I personally know of at least a dozen such cases.

Wake up guys. Get a reality check. Why shoot the messenger? Don't try to throttle the voice of the moderate liberal and brand her or him a communalist when she or he brings to light the fact that there are some genuine grievances that must be addressed. It can prove to be very dangerous.

If the liberal moderate voice is silenced through canard, through innuendo, through intimidation, then the space will be left wide open only for the extremist and the hardliners. And they need to be defeated, whoever they may be.

The fight today is not between the Hindu and the Muslim; the fight is between the moderate and the extremist. We need to have Hindu and Muslim moderates on the same side against the extremist Hindu and Muslim on the other.

Article- Leaving Islam - Jamie Glazov(interviewing Md. Asgar)

Article

Business Today - Beta - India's leading business magazine

Business Today - Beta - India's leading business magazine

NREGA: SHIP WITHOUT RUDDER? by Jean Drèze

The tremendous potential of the scheme is in danger of being wasted in some States.

- Photo: AP

A productive scheme: NREGA could be even more productive with a small dose of technical and scientific support.

Recent events in Jharkhand highlight various issues that need to be urgently addressed if the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is to survive and thrive. These events include the murders of two NREGA activists (Lalit Mehta and Kameshwar Yadav), a survey of NREGA initiated by the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute in Palamau and Koderma districts, and public hearings held there on May 26 and June 18 respectively. The latest incident is the tragic death of Tapas Soren, who immolated himself in Hazaribagh on July 2 to protest against official harassment in the context of NREGA work.

By way of background, a glimpse of the survey findings may be useful. Even in Jharkhand, one of the worst performing States as far as NREGA is concerned, there is some good news. For instance, the transition to a rights-based framework has led to a major decline in labour exploitation on rural public works. Wages are higher than they used to be, delays in wage payments are shorter, productivity norms more reasonable, and complaints of worksite harassment rare. NREGA is a valuable and valued opportunity for the rural poor, and particularly for women, to earn a living wage in a dignified manner.

Most of the respondents in a random sample of about 200 NREGA workers in Palamau and Koderma districts were highly appreciative of the programme. For instance, they felt that NREGA helped them to avoid hunger and distress migration. Also, a large majority of the respondents felt that the assets being created under NREGA were "useful" or "very useful." This was also the assessment of field investigators. Far from being a case of "playing with mud," as one grumpy commentator recently put it, NREGA is a productive scheme - and it could be even more productive with a small dose of technical and scientific support. Massive corruption

In Jharkhand, unfortunately, the tremendous potential of NREGA is in danger of being wasted due to massive corruption. Judging from the survey findings in Koderma and Palamau, transparency safeguards are routinely violated and funds are being siphoned off with abandon. A similar picture emerges from surveys in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, though there are also heartening examples of transparent implementation of NREGA, notably in Rajasthan (where we found very little evidence of embezzlement of wage funds) and Andhra Pradesh (where post office payments and institutionalised social audits appear to have a similar impact).

Coming back to recent events in Jharkhand, there is much scope for introspection. To start with, these events have exposed the repressive if not criminal character of the Indian state in large parts of the country. It is bad enough that brazen embezzlement of NREGA funds in Jharkhand, with the complicity of many government officials, has deprived millions of people of employment and wages, and thereby, of their constitutional right to life. For good measure, State authorities often scuttle any attempt to expose this nexus of corruption and crime. Our own survey team had a taste of this bitter medicine in Palamau: instead of acting on the complaints we brought to its attention, the District Administration turned against the team and sent a malicious and defamatory "report" to the Ministry of Rural Development, even insinuating that some of us might have had a hand in Lalit Mehta's murder. Defenceless grassroots workers are not so lucky as to get away with insults: they literally risk their lives every time they stand up against state-sponsored corruption and exploitation.

Second, the counterpart of this repressive apparatus is the utter helplessness of working people. This helplessness begins with a thick cloud of ignorance: we were amazed to discover how little people knew about NREGA in the survey areas, more than two years after the Act came into force. To illustrate, among 200 persons currently working on NREGA worksites in Palamau and Koderma, less than 30 per cent knew that they were entitled to 100 days of employment per year under the Act. The concept of "work on demand", for its part, had not sunk in at all. The vulnerability of the programme to corruption and abuse begins with this lack of awareness of their rights among NREGA workers.

Third, this powerlessness is also due to the absence of any effective grievance redressal system for NREGA. Gross violations of the Act can be perpetrated with virtual impunity, and most people do not know what to do and where to go when they have complaints. Even when there is conclusive evidence of fraud, and with the full backing of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, we have found it extremely hard to secure any remedial or punitive action. This state of affairs opens the door to further deterioration of the standards of implementation of NREGA, as the message is rapidly spreading that "anything goes" and that those responsible for fraud and embezzlement are "safe."

Fourth, while this situation is not unique to Jharkhand, it has been amplified there by the absence of Gram Panchayats in rural areas. Jharkhand is the only state where Gram Panchayat elections have not been held since the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution (known as "Panchayati Raj amendments"). This is not only a flagrant violation of the law, but also an infringement of people's fundamental rights, since it is impossible to provide effective public services in rural areas without functional institutions of local governance. NREGA itself is a casualty of this state of affairs. In the absence of Gram Panchayats (the chief "implementing agency" under the Act), the implementation of NREGA in Jharkhand is effectively under the control of private contractors, or quasi-contractors such as the so-called "labhuk samitis" (beneficiary committees). But private contractors work for profit, and the only way to make profit from NREGA is to cheat. In Jharkhand, therefore, corruption is built into the system.

Fifth, this impending anarchy also reflects the casual attitude of the Central government towards its own money. Given that about 90 per cent of the NREGA funds come from the Centre, the Central government has a right and a duty to enforce high standards of transparency and accountability in the programme. The Act gives it wide powers to do so, whether it is through framing rules, conducting investigations, designing an effective Monitoring and Information System (MIS), or taking action where there is evidence of fraud. Instead of seizing these opportunities, the Ministry of Rural Development largely expects the State governments to comply with its Operational Guidelines. These guidelines are indeed very good, but their legal status is unclear, and many State governments are treating them lightly - applying what suits them and ignoring the rest. Thus, NREGA is being implemented in a dangerous vacuum, with few mandatory norms except for the general provisions of the Act. Even basic safeguards, such as the maintenance of job cards and the transparency of muster rolls, are effectively left to the discretion of the State governments. This state of affairs makes NREGA quite vulnerable to corruption and other irregularities. As political parties are about to launch their respective election campaigns, there is a frightening possibility that many of them will try to "dip" into NREGA funds to fill their coffers. A wake-up call is badly needed.

Finally, the powerlessness of NREGA workers is also a reflection of the timidity of grassroots organisational work on this issue. Somehow, political organisations and social movements are yet to seize the vast potential for collective action around NREGA, whether it is through joint work applications, struggles for minimum wages, participatory planning, or building workers' unions. One rarely sees crowds of people blocking the road to demand NREGA work, or staging a dharna against delayed wage payments. The fact that a large majority of the rural population is still in the dark about the basic features of the Act, almost three years after it was passed, is another symptom of this organisational gap. The way forward

On a more constructive note, these observations point to the way forward. As far as government policy is concerned, urgent priorities include framing strong rules for NREGA, putting in place grievance redressal procedures, enforcing the transparency safeguards, and taking swift action whenever there is evidence of fraud. As far as public action is concerned, the need of the hour is to make better use of NREGA as a tool of organisational work and enable NREGA workers to defend their rights. Counting on the kindness of the state would be futile.

(The author is Visiting Professor at Allahabad University and member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council.)

Nelson at Ninety - Jorge Heine

A smile that lightens up every room he enters, a great sense of humour and the capacity to put people at ease are part of Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary ability to win people over.

SAN-Feature Service : Ultimate leadership act: Nelson Mandela’s decision not to stand for re-election, announced early in his presidency, depersonalised and institutionalised South Africa’s democratic transition.

Margaret Thatcher famously said “anyone who thinks the ANC will form the government of South Africa is living in cloud cuckoo-land.” If Mrs. Thatcher may be faulted for lack of foresight, what to say of the U.S. State Department, which until recently had the ANC, South Africa’s ruling party since 1994, on its list of terrorist organisations, whose members, including Nelson Mandela, needed a special waiver to enter the United States? Lack of hindsight?

This would be, I suppose, just another expression of what Richard Hofstadter called “the paranoid style in American politics.” It has led to the imposition of such absurd rules as those that allowed, a few weeks ago, a Canadian airport security guard to confiscate the mother’s milk of a returning-home, young American lawyer, who had laboriously pumped it from her breasts for her infant child back in San Diego, as it exceeded the prescribed limit (100 ml) of liquid airplane passengers are allowed to take on board.

Yet, outside the corridors of power of London and Washington (and even within some of them) Nelson Mandela, “Madiba” to his friends, is regarded as one of the very few iconic leaders of the twentieth century — up there with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Charles de Gaulle and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. As he turns 90, happily married to Graca Machel (the only woman to have been First Lady of two countries), he is still active, leading three foundations, collecting honorary degrees from 50 of the world’s leading universities, and dividing his time between his native hamlet of Qunu in the Transkei and Johannesburg. The recent concert held in his honour in London, broadcast around the world 20 years after the one held in 1988 to demand his release, shows the enormous esteem he is held in.

I first met Nelson Mandela on a rainy, late June 1994 morning in De Tuynhuys, the South African President’s office in Cape Town, when I presented my letters of credence. It was the first such ceremony for both of us, the 18th century building next to Parliament — which once housed the Governors of the Cape — was being refurbished (this was a scarce six weeks after Mandela’s inauguration) and it took us a while to get going. Yet, after the speeches and the photo-ops, I had my 15 (that turned into 30) minutes in private with him and a couple of aides — that sound tradition that has fallen by the wayside in so many countries.

The standard template for such meetings is to exchange social pleasantries, and perhaps talk about the weather, but certainly not about any bilateral issues, about which the head of state would not necessarily be fully briefed. I departed from the script, took my chances and brought up the question of the potential creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa. Justice Minister Dullah Omar, a good friend, had been pushing for it, partly inspired by the Chilean experience with a TRC, but these were early days and there was no consensus either in the government or in the ANC. Mandela listened intently to my description of Chile’s TRC, why it was considered to have set the standard for such bodies at the time, and why it represented a good compromise between two extreme solutions that had not worked to deal with an evil past: the creation of special courts to prosecute human rights violations under authoritarian rule, and, on the
other hand, a blanket amnesty for those involved in such shenanigans.

I could see his mind at work, assessing what was at stake. Instead of asking one of his aides to take notes for a possible follow-up (that might never take place), which would have been the SOP for such a demarche, he asked me a couple of questions about how TRCs worked, and then whether I had anything in writing about the Chilean Commission. I happened to have an 80-page, English-language summary version of the three-volume report of the latter, which I sent to him by hand that very afternoon.

I would like to think that exchange played a role, however small, in the subsequent launch of the South African TRC, whose activities became one of the defining features of Mr. Mandela’s presidency, and a body that, under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his deputy, Alex Boraine, would set a new standard for Truth Commissions. In 1998, when the South African TRC delivered its report, including criticisms of what had transpired in the ANC camps, the party made a big ruckus, but Mr. Mandela held his peace.

In this, as in so many other matters, Mr. Mandela showed an uncanny sense of that “middle road” that marked his presidency and his leadership — one that stood for certain basic principles, without necessarily antagonising and alienating his adversaries and political rivals. One year after our initial meeting, in June 1995, his famous gesture of donning the South African rugby team’s captain’s jersey (a sport widely identified with whites and white supremacy) in Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium, on the day the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup, was emblematic of his push for reconciliation, and did much to bring Afrikaners around to the country’s new dispensation.

Less known is his visit to Betsy Verwoerd, the widow of former Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the true architect of apartheid. In late 1994, Mr. Mandela hosted a lunch party in Johannesburg for prominent South African women from all walks of life: Adelaide Tambo, Amina Cachalia, Nadine Gordimer, Helen Suzman and Frene Ginwala were all there. He invited Betsy Verwoerd, who lived in Orania, a town in the middle of the Orange Free State (originally set up, in the Afrikaner delirium, as a “whites only” town) but she declined. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Mandela flew to Orania and had tea and koeksusters with her, thus reaching out to Afrikaners in the very heart of their laager.

After being imprisoned and “banned” (meaning he became a “non-person”, who could not be quoted or mentioned in the media or in public) by the apartheid regime for 27 years, Mr. Mandela suddenly found himself surrounded and idolised by white, Afrikaner children during his visits to schools, something to which his regal bearing and innate elegance helped — to see him with Queen Elizabeth during her 10-day visit to South Africa was to see two monarchs, one a democratic one, the other a constitutional one, with great respect and appreciation for each other.

Mr. Mandela’s ultimate leadership act was his decision, announced early in his presidency, not to stand for re-election, thus depersonalising and institutionalising South Africa’s democratic transition, giving it a stability so sadly missing in so many other African countries (witness Zimbabwe today), where the penchant of leaders to perpetuate themselves in power, even long after their welcome period has expired, has caused so much harm. Much as Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk provided the role model for the effective reformer in 20th century politics, Mr. Mandela has provided the one for the democratising leader that successfully makes the transition from head of the liberation struggle to advocate for peaceful reconciliation, something very few of his counterparts have managed anywhere.

Mr. Mandela’s significance and success, then, goes way beyond that much overused word — charisma, though he has plenty of it. A smile that lightens up every room he enters, a great sense of humour (whenever he would meet us he would ask my wife, “do you remember me?”) and a remarkable capacity to put people at ease are part of this extraordinary ability to win people over, be they friend or foe. His loyalty to those who supported him and his struggle is legendary. Taiwan kept its Embassy in Pretoria till 1997, as he refused — against the opinion of many advisers — to break diplomatic ties with Taipei. He also publicly expressed his gratitude to Indonesian strongman Suharto, not exactly a champion of democracy, by inviting him for a state visit to South Africa.

So has been his ability to change course as the political situation demanded. In the 60s, as the apartheid state swung into full repression mode, he moved from non-violent, Gandhian opposition to white rule to espousing armed struggle. And then, in the 90s, he switched back again from armed resistance to peaceful negotiation and reconciliation — but only after being released from prison, pointedly refusing an early 1985 release entailing a commitment to giving up the struggle, arguing that “ only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”

Happy birthday, Mr. President!—SAN-Feature Service

Jorge Heine is CIGI Professor of Global Governance at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario. He served as Chile’s Ambassador to South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

:The Daily Star: Internet Edition- Menifesto of a World State

:The Daily Star: Internet Edition
Manifesto for a world state
Alamgir Khan

THE World House by Dr. Martin Luther King can be called the manifesto of a world state movement, which is now achieving more momentum, and converting more people to the idea, day by day. This gathering pace of the movement is due to the current disorder of the world led by the US hegemony and absence of an alternative solution. The idea of world state of course is not so new. However, now it has become urgent in the surge of globalisation, which is discriminately tilted to one side.

Globalisation has become the globalisation of the goods, trade and investment of the rich world, making the poor more destitute. Why not globalisation of cheap labour of the poor nations, which they have in abundance? Why are passports and state borders needed, when you know full well against whom these work, if you are so fond of open market and globalisation?

Hypocrisy lies in the rich world's passion for the privileges of nation states and for breaking through the doors of the poor with the open market sledgehammer. The ugliest face of nationalism was seen in the rise of Nazi Germany, though it has, at the same time, been a powerful weapon for third world countries in breaking free of the imperialist shackles throughout the twentieth century. As a weapon, it is still very useful as long as rich states keep their fences in place while tearing away the poor ones' into pieces.

Many in the past ventured to form a world government. Islam, since its inception, has had a vision of bringing the world into a single order, its prophet being a person who dreamt of building a world state, as Jawaharlal Nehru admiringly mentions in his Glimpses of History.

Again, Karl Marx and Engels's view of a non-state world coincides with the view of an earth with one government. After the Second World War, the United Nations was formed to set up a new order in international relations so that conflicts and wars could be replaced by conciliation and peace.

But it has strayed far away from that early dream of world leaders. The impotence of the United Nations was conspicuous in its failure to prevent the American attack against Iraq.

Dr. Martin Luther King cast this age-old thought into a concrete philosophical shape in his essay that begins: "Some years ago a famous novelist died." Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: "A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together."

This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together -- black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu -- a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live in peace with each other.

The thought germinated during his Nobel Peace Prize lecture in 1964. King later wrote a book – Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?-- that was published in 1967, which included this lecture in illustrated form in the chapter "The World House."

In it he says: "Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools … There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we now have the resources to get rid of it … The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible."

The essay concludes with this prophetic warning: "Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilisations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.' There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. 'The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on … ' We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance to choose between chaos and community."

Since King's essay, many books and articles and several manifestos have been written for a world state. However, King's is short, eloquent, broad-visioned, passionate, unbiased and more convincing. But the idea of such a movement is still confined within a small part of intelligentsia, with most of them, naturally, of the west.

The idea has yet not seeped into the mass level, without whose support success is a far cry. Again, the movement for a world state is not a monolith, rather it is full of various contradictory designs and aspirations, which is natural too.

One type of visionary wants to shape the world within the cloak of American domination. There are others who want to form a world where every nation, race and individual will live with all their rights admitted by others, and grow to their full potential without hindrance from outside.

Carrying out movements and strengthening them in the light of King's vision for a world state is an urgent need in the present world if we do want to live together in harmony, and not want to annihilate ourselves in the chaos that is all around us nowadays.

It is high time mankind threw away the hegemonic nationalism and nation states into the dustbin of history, and went forward towards a new horizon of a democratic world state. The road, of course, is too bumpy to stay on course, yet there is no other better alternative to it.



Alamgir Khan is Program Officer, Other Vision Communication, a media organisation.