From the Editor’s Desk: General Election 2009, Secular Parties & Muslim Electorate
Chronology of the Month : ( 1 – 31 January, 2008)
Communalism: Ashish Nandy on Middle Class Politics of Hate in Gujarat
:Report on Hindu Student Council , USA
:P.K. Varma on Communalism of the Middle Class
Communal Violence: Joseph Commission on Marad Riots
Delhi Carnage, 1984: Review of ‘1984 Carnage and its Aftermath’ by
M. Mitta & H.S.Phoolka
Democracy: Shashi Tharoor on Parliamentary System
Economic Development: 11thFive Year Plan: Provision for Minorities
Employment: Maitreyi Bordia Das on Minority Status in Labour Market
:Jean Drege on Universalization of Employment Guarantee
Education: NCMEI’s Annual Report for 2005-06 (Summary)
:Sachar Report on Madrasa Education (Text)
: Report on Muslims under SSA for 2006-07
Gujarat Election: Suman K. Jha on Painful Lesson for INC
: Rajeev Deshpande on impact of Gujarat on INC and BJP
: Ramaswamy R. Iyer’s Reflections
Gujarat Genocide: Editorial in National Press on Bilkis Bano case
Heritage: Report on Jaunpur
Identity: Sameera Khan on Exclusive Identity and Muslim Women-I
Kashmir Situation: JKLF Leader Javed Mir on Kashmir Dispute
Minority Uplift: Overview of NMDFC
Muslim Minorities: Report on Sri Lanka Muslim Community
Muslim World: S. S. Aiyar on Empowerment of Women in Bangladesh
: Eddiej Girdner on US Grand Strategy for Middle East-I
: Virginia Tilley on Anti-Hamas Coup
: MEA’s Stand on Palestine
: Editorial in Asian Affairs on West’s Palestine Policy
National Politics: Pankaj Vohra on Third Alternative
: SC on Social Violence
: Khushwant Singh on BJP and Hindutva
Political Representation: Review of ‘Political Representation of Muslims’
by Iqbal Ansari
: Madhav Godbole on Votebank Politics
Religious Rights: IMJW’s Appeal for Protecting Places of Worship
Secularism: Justice B. N. Srikrishna’s Tarkunde Memorial Lecture on
Secularism
Terrorism: M.S. Ganesh’s Thoughts on Terrorism
: Modus Operandi of Police in Terrorist Cases
Urdu: Sachar Report on Urdu in School (Extracts)
World Trends: Fareed Zakaria on Global Upsurge of Sub-nationalism
in Nation States
:Bhikhu Parekh on Islamic Democracy


FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
General Election 2009, Secular Parties & Muslim Electorate
Muslim Indians constitute roughly 15% of the national electorate, spread over some 15 states. As a politically conscious, pan-Indian minority they can be inspired to have a higher turn-out than average, thus raising their effective voter strength to 20-25%, particularly in 80-100 Lok Sabha constituencies in which they constitute 20% or more of the electorate.
The promise by Nehru and Patel in the Constituent Assembly in 1949 to treat the Muslims generously in representation in legislatures because they had ‘voluntarily’ given up reservation is yet to be fulfilled and the Muslims have been consistently under-represented both at central and state levels. The main reason for this has been that secular parties do not field adequate number of Muslim candidates. Yet the Muslims have always supported secular parties, initially the Congress but later others as well, in election. Above all they have never nursed Muslim parties, though many a time they have lacked an effective voice to ventilate their difficulties or grievances or to seek redressal or remedial action in accordance with law from the government of the day.
Off and on, the Muslim intelligentsia have been toying with the idea of establishing a Muslim party or atleast a Muslim-core party, a secular party open to all but Muslim led. But the community, divided as well as dispersed, has failed to consolidate itself for such a development. Time has come to remove these cobwebs from the Muslim mind and to convince them that Maulana Azad’s post- independence prescription to refrain from communal politics while legitimately conserving their religious, cultural or social identities is still valid. Thinking Muslims have realized that Muslim communalism can only provide wind to the sails of Hindu communalism and bring them little benefit because there are very few constituencies with Muslim majority in the country. In any case the Muslim party shall stand isolated from the secular mainstream.
The Muslims have been often charged with permitting themselves to be exploited as a vote bank. Universally a minority group tends to vote unitedly for an impact on the election which is based on first-past-the-post principle. Faced with their show of strength at the constituency level both the winner and the loser try to retain the goodwill of the Muslim electorate-the winner out of fear of losing support, the loser out of hope for gaining favour. In any case, of late, the Muslims have not voted for any particular party throughout the country or even throughout a state, but for different political parties in different constituencies within the same state. Neither they have voted exclusively for Muslim candidates except when a winnable Muslim candidate was fielded by a major party.
The major problem Muslim voters face is multiplicity of candidates fielded by the secular parties in order to nurse their own constituencies. As a result the Muslim voters find it hard to decide which party was likely to win and decide whom to support. This is the reason why Muslim leadership has often suggested to secular parties that even if they can not form a national alliance, at least they should reach mutual understanding and make adjustment in Muslim concentration seats so that the Muslim voters unitedly defend such seats against saffron invasion.
The second problem is internal. In Muslim winnable constituencies there are several fake muslim candidates, sometimes fielded by anti-Muslim forces in order to divide Muslim votes. Muslim electorate has by now developed the instinct to recognize the fake, but they are yet to overcome the call of the ‘baradarivad’ which is encouraged by some political parties, not to win but divide Muslim votes and sometimes to add to their own take. A secular alliance may choose its common candidate in such constituencies from the biggest Muslim baradari. In an ideal situation, the Muslim turn-out will be 100% for the secular candidate and thus double the effective value of their votes. Needles to say, the common Muslim candidate should be chosen after carefully testing both his secular credentials as well his place in the community.
In the run- up to the General Election 2009, a number of states with a substantial population of Muslims are going to have elections to their Assemblies including Karnataka, Rajasthan, MP and Delhi. The Congress has lost 5 Assembly elections in a row since 2004, the last being Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and entire north India from West Bengal to Gujarat with the exception of Delhi and Haryana now has non-Congress governments. Since Gujarat debacle, all talk of mid-term poll or premature dissolution of the Lok Sabha has ceased. On the other hand, galvanized by recent victories, the BJP, the party of Hindutva and the major anti-secular and communal political force in the country, has launched a nation-wide campaign to prepare the ground for coming election, under the NDA, with a common policy and programme and Advani as the leader.
It is indeed unfortunate that at this juncture some political parties including the CPI(M) are supporting the idea of a Third Front, equidistant from both the Congress and the BJP. The proposed Front may include parties which once formed part of the NDA or supported the UPA from outside. In fact, counting the Left Front itself, this will not be the Third but Fourth Front. Perhaps the Left hopes to reach understanding with the new Front. But will this combination beat the NDA? Undeniably, only the Congress and the BJP are national parties. Equally, whatever ideological, strategic or tactical mistakes the Congress has committed, there is increasing polarization between the two. The ideological space between then is likely to widen and the political space is bound to shrink. This shall make it increasingly difficult for other secular parties or fronts which are seriously committed to combating the charge of the Saffron Brigade without direct or indirect alliance, understanding or adjustment with the Congress. Otherwise, they would only undermine each other to the obvious advantage of the NDA. The Third or the Fourth Front will not attract any Hindutva votes. On the other hand, some secular voters, sitting on the fence may switch over to the NDA as the likely winner if secular forces are divided.
For years Muslim organizations particularly, the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat have been pleading with all secular parties including the Congress and the CPI(M) to form a National Secular Alliance(NSA). At the same time, they have urging the Congress, which is the biggest secular party all said and done, to come down from its high horse, not to treat other secular parties with disdain or contempt and take the initiative for consolidation. Unfortunately, it tried to attract Hindutvadi votes by adopting the ‘pale saffron’ strategy. This failed again in 2007 as it had in 2002. It alienated secular elements in the civil society, other secular parties in the arena and, what is worse, cast a shadow on its secular credentials. In the present circumstances the Muslims who remain a firm pillar of the secular structure strongly feel that the Congress can not defeat the BJP on its own and must seek to reinforce the secular mansion and realistically embrace other secular parties including the Left, even those which are prepared to break from the NDA, and work out a seat distribution formula which shall give the others the constituencies in which they have been an electoral force. Secondly, to maintain the secular hold over the Centre, all parties have to disconnect state politics from national politics. The voters have been wiser than the parties and are increasingly voting for one party for the Lok Sabha and another for the state Assembly. This tendency should be encouraged. Also to create public confidence the Alliance should be formed before the election with a common policy statement and programme of governance.
In a society, as segmented as ours, even Gandhiji realized the need and utility for Muslim political workers to reach out to the Muslim masses. This implies that the secular parties must recognize, respect and respond to the religious and social identity of the Muslim community, appreciate the grievances and difficulties it faces and the constitutional and legal remedies it seeks. This appreciation does not amount to fanning separatism but only ensures that as the country moves forward, Muslim Indians participate in the process at every level and get their due share in the fruits of development. Justice strengthens nationalism and inspires all segments to enter the political arena not only for their own sake but to serve the common cause.
The political objective of the Muslim community is crystal clear. Despite frustration and disappointment that is has faced since 1952, even under the UPA government, it seeks a secular government at the centre which is committed to a programme for the uplift of the minorities as of other deprived sections of the society, for fair distribution and for due representation in the power structure. This objective is not only achievable but convergent with the secular order.
Once the secular parties form the NSA or at least agree in principle to field common Muslim candidates in Muslim concentration constituencies, the community has to organise itself rising above sect, denomination or baradari or inter organizational rivalry. No doubt, it has an abundance of organizations, a few have a hold on its mind at the ground level. Some operate at district or state or national levels. Some just exist on papers. But in all neighbourhoods one Jamaat or two exist which help in forming Muslim public opinion.
At present at the national level Muslims have several bodies which claim to represent the community: the AIMMM, the AIMC, the JUH and the JIH. These four organizations with their state and district linkages have the key role to play, in consultation with other Muslim organizations and institutions. Together they can easily form the Muslim Election Committees at the centre and in major states and perhaps in many LS constituencies. Its national office can collect relevant data on all constituencies. Jointly, they can press the major secular parties to form the proposed Alliance as the only way to confront the saffron storm. Together they can help the Alliance to identify Muslim winnable constituencies and even in selecting common winnable Muslim candidates. Together they can write the Muslim Charter of Aspirations and request the Alliance to incorporate it in their Common Programme. But what is more important, locally they can also assist Muslim voters to enroll themselves in the electoral lists and obtain their election cards; later they can explain to the Muslim electorate the benefit of massive and united voting. At the time of elections, they can participate in the campaign of the common secular candidate and assist the voters.
A methodical and systematic approach, positive thinking and hard work can bring the community many dividends. Participation in campaign will train many political and social workers who can later serve as contact with the legislators, find their way in political parties ad some of them may rise to become candidates and legislators.
In the worst scenario, if the secular parties fail to come together, form the NSA and field common candidates, the Muslim organizations will have to identify the most winnable candidates of a secular party with the biggest social base in every constituency and persuade the Muslim electorate not to divide its votes but to vote unitedly for the chosen candidate irrespective of the party or religion. The Muslim community has no option but to face the challenge of Hindu communalism and ensure that a secular party wins in constituencies where Muslim votes matter.
The survival of the secular order and the promotion of the legitimate aspirations of the Muslim community are intertwined with each other. The installation of a secular government at the centre and due representation of Muslims in the Lok Sabha are compatible and convergent goals; their achievement rests entirely on two factors; formation of National Secular Alliance and nomination of common Muslim candidates in 70 odd constituencies. This will electrify the entire Muslim electorate throughout the country to acatively participate in the campaign of the NSA and to vote unitedly and massively for it and thus save Secular Democracy.


New Delhi
1 February, 2008 (Syed Shahabuddin)

SECULARISM
Secularism under the Constitution
2nd V. M. Tarkunde Memorial Lecture delivered
by Justice B. N. Srikrishna (Retd.)
Secularism, like paramountcy, is more easily identified as a concept, but most difficult to define. Political scientists and social scientists are not agreed on what exactly is the definitive content of this term despite its free usage in discourse. At different times, and in different countries, the words ‘secular’ or ‘secularism’ have been imbued with different meanings conditioned by the sociological and cultural construct. The term ‘secularism’ was first proposed as a formal philosophical system by George J. Holyoake in about 1846, in England. Its first postulate is freedom of thought, that is, the right of every man to think for himself. Implied in this postulate as its necessary complement is the right to difference of opinion upon all subjects of thoughts. This right would be negated without the right to assert that difference. Finally, secularism asserts the right to discuss and debate all vital questions, such as opinions regarding the foundations of moral obligation, the existence of God, and the authority of conscience.
Secularism, as a concept of western origin and vintage, has perhaps no Indian equivalent. In none of the Indian languages, whether Sanskrit or any other language in the Indian sub-continent, do we come across a term that exactly corresponds to the Western concept of secularism. The term “Dharma-Nirapekshat”, loosely used in some government circles, is conceptually incorrect and connotatively misleading. “Dharma” as understood in the Indian context is a compendious word not restricted to “religion”.
If we identify the spirit of the concept of western secularism as an attempt at liberalism, as an attempt at not enforcing one’s religious thinking on others, with or without the use of force, the concept is familiar as we see its glimpses throughout Indian history. Despite the dominant discourse of “Sanatana Dharma” the ideas opposed to the dominant discourse were neither aborted, nor violently suppressed. On the contrary, there was active debate and attempt to rationally refute and critically confute rival ideas and concepts. Debate, discourse and dialectics were the tools to achieve this end. This spirit of accommodation and synthesis has richly contributed to the development of the Indian version of secularism. To the Indian, secularism strictly does not mean total divorce form Dharma. For him religion is the desideratum and a devout consummation to be achieved in life encompassing even the body politic.
The political developments in the country leading to its partition left their indelible imprints on the framers of our Constitution. Gandhi reckoned secularism as “Sarva-Dharma Samabhava” or equal regard for all religions. Jawarharlal Nehru, a self-proclaimed agnostic, too enthusiastically adopted this conceptual vector, which was different in dimensions from its European cousin. As a keen student of European history, Nehru was very aware of the adverse consequences of association between State and Religion. In his conceptualization, a secular State, “does not obviously mean a State where religion is discouraged. It means freedom of religion and conscience, including freedom for those who have no religion, subject only to their not interfering with each other with the basic conception of our state”. This was but an attempt to reconcile the ideal with the practical; a synthesis of antitheses. Acceptance of ‘secularism’ as a political ideal was a formal concession of practical necessity in a multi-religious society. Given the immediate fear psyche gripping both the majority and minority communities at the time it was essential to articulate a syncretic hypothesis, which could reassure both. The testing times gave birth to the Indian version of secularism, purely as an Indian response to the situation. It has, therefore, been described as the mode of reconciliation of identity groups in the process of democratic transformation based on reason.
In post independence India, Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea of secularism as “keeping the State politics and education separate from religion” and making religion a private matter for the individual, became dominant. Its natural corollary was ‘equal respect for all faiths, and equal opportunities for those who profess any faith,. In a multi-religious and multi-caste society, secularism is a dire necessity for society’s survival. If a plurality of groups is to function as a minimal inter-related society functioning on the basis of minimal trust, the political system has to generate a frame of reasonable parity between the groups. In a society where “religion” is an every day mode, secularism cannot mean a structural separation between the religious and the secular, but an arrangement in which all group identities, contingently “religious”, enjoy a fair deal. This is Gandhian secularism. The wisdom of Gandhi can be seen when it is realized that this is what Indian secularism has turned out to be in practice—not an abolition of the religious category in politics, but a religious parity within the political framework.
Vinobaji, another greater thinker of our times, explained secularism, or “Sarva Dharma Samabhav” thus: “ I am of the view that there are four essential ingredients of Sarv Dharma Sambav, the feeling of equality for all religions. On of them is faith in one’s own religion, the second is respect for all religions, the third is the reformation of one’s religion and the fourth one, which naturally follows from these three, is opposition to irreligiousness. When all these ingredient are found together, there is Sarva Dharma Samabhav.
Indira Gandhi publicly declared that the tern “Dharma Nirapekshata” the Hindi rendering of secularism, which literally means religious neutrality, or religious non-alignment, is inaccurate and affirmed that Indian secularism is equal alignment with all religions.
Concisely put, the essential requisites of a secular State imply the following:
1. The state guarantees Freedom of conscience in matters of religion to all citizens.
2. There is no discrimination between individuals on grounds of religion. This would imply that there is equality before the law and positions of authority are open to all.
3. The state is not concerned with and, therefore, does not interfere in matters of religion.
The Constitution as originally adopted on the 19th November 1949 made no reference in the preamble to India being a secular state. Surprisingly, the debate in the Constituent Assembly, though illuminating on several aspects of the drafting of the constitution hardly contain any ‘speeches on the aspect of secularism’, even by respected leaders like, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad, who were its staunch votaries. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar made a statement on the floor of the Constituent Assembly, though in a different context, which had some relevance. There was discussion in the Constituent Assembly on Article 13 on the 2nd of December 1948 when an attempt was being made to introduce a clause to save personal law. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar contended that Article 44 of the directive Principles, which was under consideration, required that the State shall strive to bring about a uniform civil code. We ought to strive hereafter to limit the definition of religion in such a manner that we shall not extend it beyond beliefs and such rituals as may be connected with ceremonials which are essentially religious. It is not necessary that the sort of laws, for instance, laws relating to tenancy, or laws relating to succession, should be governed by religion. I do not see why religion should be given this vast, expansive jurisdiction as to cover the whole of life and to prevent the legislature from encroaching upon that field.
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan secularism in the Indian context meant an equal status for all religions. The argument put forward in support of this proposition was that it was merely an extension of the democratic principle to religion. In his own words: “We hold that no one religion should be given preferential status, or unique distinction, that no one religion should be accorded special privileges in national life, or international relations, for that would be a violation of the basic principles of democracy and contrary to the best interest of religion and government. …..No group of citizens shall arrogate to itself rights and privileges which it denies to others. No person shall suffer any form of disability or discrimination because of his religion but all alike should be free to share to the fullest degree in the common life, this is the basic principle involved in the separation of Church and State”.
India opted for secularism in 1947.This was a promise fulfilled; a pledge redeemed. As far back as 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru had propounded his philosophy of secularism in his Presidential Address at the Lahore Congress. The Karachi Congress Resolution, on Fundamental Rights in 1931, declared that the State shall observe neutrality in regard to all religions. In a letter to Mr. Ghanshyam Singh Gupta in October , 1945 Nehru said, “I am convinced that the future Government of free India must be secular, in the sense that Government will not associate itself directly with any religious faith.” In his speech in Aligarh on January 24, 1948, he said that the greatest need of the hour was to cultivate a broad outlook and not to be led away by the narrowness of others. In a broadcasting on February 14, 1948, Nehru said; “India is a common home to all those who live here, to whatever religion they may belong – they have equal rights and obligations. Outs is a composite nation.
On October 2, 1948, he declared “we are building a free secular State where every religion and belief has full freedom and equal honour, whose every citizen has equal liberty and equal opportunity.”
To Indian thinking secularism is not merely the broad pattern of management of equation between politics and religion. It represents much more then being a matter of institutional framework. It represents a true sense of synthesis of religion and compassion with a spirit of tolerance, universalism and freedom. It represents the majesty of the Rule of Law or Dharma as the indispensable yardstick for a secular State or a secular society. It is at once an ideal aspiration, a goal as well as and end; a product as well as a process.
Between 1950-1967, secularism had been identified as a Constitutional concept with well-recognized contours. Its addition to the Preamble hardly mattered, apart from stating the obvious. The important components of ‘ secularism’ as contained in our Constitution, may be formulated thus
Equality as incorporated in Article 14.
Prohibition against discrimination on the grounds of religion, caste, Art. 15 & 16.
Freedom of speech and expression and all other important freedoms, Art. 19 & 21.
There shall not be any State Religion. The State will neither establish a religion of its own nor confer any special patronage upon any religion. It follows this that—
a. The State will not compel any citizen to pay any taxes for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religious institution. (Art 27)
b. No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly provided by State Funds.
c. Even though (b) may not be followed, no person attending such institution shall be compelled to receive that religious instruction without the consent of himself or his guardian. (Article 28)
Every person is granted the freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess, practice and propagate his own religions subject to certain restrictions as laid down in Article 25.
Every religious group has a right to establish and maintain charitable institutions, to manage its own affairs in matters of religion etc. as laid out in Article 26.
Where a religious community is in the minority, Article 29 states such a community shall have the right to preserve its culture and religious interests.
Such a community would have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of its choice.
Fundamental duty of the State to enact a uniform civil code treating all the citizens as equal is imposed by Article 44. Sentiment of majority of the people towards the cow and against its slaughter was incorporated in Article 48 ‘The State shall endeavor to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.
The neutrality of the State would be violated if religion is used for political purposes and advocated by political parties for their political ends. An appeal to the electorates on the grounds of religion offends secular democracy.
As has been explained by Shri M. C. Setalvad (Patelvad Memorial Lectures – 1965 on secularism)
Secularism often denotes the way of life and conduct guided by materialistic considerations devoid of religion. The basis of this ideology is that material means alone can advance mankind and that religious beliefs retard the growth of the human beings this ideology is of recent growth and it is obvious that it is quite different from the concept of secular State in the West which took root many centuries ago.
A different view in relation to religion is the basis of ‘secularism’ understood in the sense of what may be called a ‘secular attitude’ towards life. Society generally or the individual constituting it tends progressively to isolate religion from the more significant areas of common life. Many of us, Hindus and Muslims and others, are, in our way of life and outlook on most matter, largely governed by ideas and practices which are connected with or are rooted in our religion. The secular attitude would wean us away from this approach so that in our relations with our fellow beings or in dealings with other social groups, we have less and less regard for religion and religious practices and base our lives and actions more on worldly considerations, restricting religion and its influence to what has been called its ‘proper’ sphere, i.e., the advancement of the spiritual life and well being of the individual. Secularism of this character is said to be essential to our progress as human beings and as a nation because it will enable us to shake off the narrow and restrictive outlook arising out of casteism, communalism and other like ideas which come in the way of our development. The concept of the secular State is quite distinct from ‘secularism’ of the kinds we have adverted so above. No doubt, the two concept are interdependent in the sense that it is difficult to conceive of a society or a group of individuals being induced to adopt a secular philosophy or a secular attitude without the ais of a secular State.
A secular State is not easy to define. According to the liberal democratic tradition of the West, the secular State is not hostile to religion but holds itself neutral in matters of religion”
Thereafter, referring to the Indian concept of secularism, the learned jurist stated as follows:“the secularism way of life was repeatedly preached by leaders of movement so that religious matters came to be regarded entirely as relating to the conscience of the individuals.”
“The coming of the partition emphasized the great importance of secularism. Notwithstanding the partition, a large Muslim minority consisting of a tenth of the population continued to be the citizens of independent India. There are other important minority groups of citizens. In the circumstances, a secular constitution for independent India under which all religions could enjoy equal freedom and all citizens equal right and which could weld together into one nation, the different religious communities, become inevitable.”
One thing which prominently emerges from the above discussion on secularism under our Constitution is that whatever the attitude of the State towards the religions, religious sects and denominations, religion cannot be mixed with any secular activity of the State. In fact, the encroachment of religion into secular activities is strictly prohibited. This is evident from the provisions of the Constitution to which we have made reference above. The State’s tolerance of religion or religious does not make it either a religious or a theocratic State. When the State allows citizens to practise and profess their religions, it does not either explicitly or implicitly allow them to introduce religion into non-religious and secular activities of the State. The freedom and tolerance of religion is only to the extent of permitting pursuit of spirituals life. The latter falls in the exclusive domain of the affairs of the State.”
The genius of Indian thinking is that it has telescoped into what was predominantly a Western concept, the ideas and ideals reflected in our scriptures and rooted in our cultural heritage.
The Constitutional ideal of creating a free, secular and just society is intended to establish the framework in which each individual can rise to his highest potential and the nation can be transformed into, a ‘heaven of freedom’ of which Rabindranath Tagore sang in the Gitanjali.
(Source: The Redical Huminist, )

Secularism Not only Recognises Diversity but Energises and Encourages All Identities
Abhishek Singhvi
Secularism cannot be seen in isolation and is not a stand-alone pillar of the Constitution. The words of the constitutional preamble rightly refer to concepts of fraternity, equality, justice, socialism, federalism and secularism. But hat all of them convey a sense of India’s pluralism.
The overriding theme about the very idea of India, is its multiple, and bewildering plurality. There are diversities of ethnicity, religion, race, colour, language, dress, habit, food, language and so on. Thus, Indian democracy, for its very existence and survival, must be an inclusive democracy. Secularism has to be the basic pillar to facilitate and manage the chaotic sights, sounds, smells and sense of such a plural India.
Professor R. Bhargav expatiated on the Lincolnian concept of “by, of and for the people”. He said it would have been enough to use the words — i.e. by the people and for the people to explain much of the essence of democracy. But, he said, the second phrase, ‘of the people’ conveys a vital aspect without which a true democracy cannot sustain itself. “Of the people”, he said, was added to convey the element of ownership of democracy by all sections of the population. That sense of ownership of democracy alone completes the circle of ‘We the people’. That is also why we should be proud that we are neither a Hindu republic nor a Muslim one nor a Sikh one because any one of them would exclude all the other segments from ownership of Indian democracy.
The third point is that the Indian model of secularism is unique to India. It is not constitutionally akin to the US, where there is a strict separation of the State and of religion, theoretically to the extent of the State being irreligious or anti-religion. The US, has a bilateral exclusion. Other models, like the Turkish or French ones, attempt a one-way exclusion — religion should not be present in State activity but the State is not per se excluded from religion. India has leaned toward an active, affirmative respect for all religions, thereby constitutionally reflecting the ‘Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava’ concept. But Professor Bhargav rightly points out that the Indian-State exhibits both positive respect and disrespect for religion, instead of antiseptic disinterest, by support to or hindrance of aspects of religion — e.g. the State can and does interfere by reforming negative aspects of religion like sati.
Fourth, if ‘dharma’ truly means right conduct, then a more accurate description of Indian secularism should be ‘panth nirpekshta’ instead of ‘dharma nirpekshta’ because no one, including the State, can or should be neutral to or away from righteous conduct. This may involve more than a mere semantic correction, since ‘panth nirpekshta’ along with ‘Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava’ convey the right sense of neutrality coupled with an absence of anti-religiosity.
Fifth, the essence of Indian secularism must, therefore, combine pluralism — the very idea of India — with one more word i.e. ‘humanism’. Humanistic pluralism has to be the catchphrase for Indian governance. Unless all our models of governance are participatory, shared and inclusive, the country would fall apart. The more we loosen our hold — socially, economically, politically, administratively — the more the country will hold together; the more we try to hold tightly together, the more the country risks breaking asunder.
The sixth aspect follows — secularism is thus linked with the seemingly unlinked pillar of federalism. Federalism is nothing but another vehicle for managing pluralities. Our framers designed India as a highly centripetal structure — federal powers far outweigh State decentralisation. They were rightly apprehensive of the fissiparous ambiance and believed that a federally leaning structure would afford a higher degree of security against future break-ups In operational reality, the Indian nation has become more and more federal and decentralised. Indeed, several aspects of decentralisation which irritate us — like regionalism or the multitude of regional political formations — actually operate as a safety valve for dissent and dissatisfaction. They quarantine conflicts within State or regional boundaries and improve local delivery mechanisms and responsiveness.
Any Constitution, in one sense, is anti-democratic as it perpetually entrenches certain rights of the minorities against majoritarianism, while majority rule is the essence of democracy. Secularism similarly entrenches certain values deemed eternal by a society against majority erosion.
Finally, secularism is the synthesis of reason with compassion. It is the creed of aggregation as against segregation, of synthesis against separation, of pluralism against dominance. Unless the State not only recognises each identity but also energises and encourages all identities, a State as diverse as India will wither away. Therein lies both the true meaning of secularism as also its real challenge.
(Abhishek Singhvi is an MP, National Spokesperson of the Congress party and a senior advocate.)
(Source: The Hindustan Times, 23 January, 2008)

COMMUNALISM
Middle Class Politics of Hate in Gujarat
Ashis Nandy
Now that the dust has settled over the Gujarat elections, we can admit that, even if Narendra Modi had lost the last elections, it would not have made much difference to the culture of Gujarat politics. Modi had already done his job. Most of the state’s urban middle class would have remained mired in its inane versions of communalism and parochialism and the VHP and the Bajrang Dal would have continued to set the tone of state politics. Forty years of dedicated propaganda does pay dividends, electorally and socially.
The Hindus and the Muslims of the state — once bonded so conspicuously by language, culture and commerce — have met the demands of both Savarkar and Jinnah. They now face each other as two hostile nations. The handful of Gujarati social and political activists who resist the trend are seen not as dissenters but as treacherous troublemakers who should be silenced by any means, including surveillance, censorship and direct violence. As a result, Gujarati cities, particularly its educational institutions are turning cultural deserts. Gujarat has already disowned the Indian Constitution and the state apparatus has adjusted to the change.
The Congress, the main opposition party, has no effective leader. Nor does it represent any threat to the mainstream politics of Gujarat. The days of grass-roots leaders like Jhinabhai Darji are past and a large section of the party now consists of Hindu nationalists. The national leadership of the party does not have the courage to confront Modi over 2002, given its abominable record of 1984.
The Left is virtually non-existent in Gujarat. Whatever minor presence it once had among intellectuals and trade unionists is now a vague memory. The state has disowned Gandhi, too; Gandhian politics arouses derision in middle-class Gujarat. Except for a few valiant old-timers, Gandhians have made peace with their conscience by withdrawing from the public domain. Gandhi himself has been given a saintly, Hindu nationalist status and shelved. Even the Gujarati translations of his Complete Works have been stealthily distorted to conform to the Hindu nationalist agenda.
Gujarati Muslims too are “adjusting” to their new station. Denied justice and proper compensation, and as second-class citizens in their home state, they have to depend on voluntary efforts and donor agencies. The state’s refusal to provide relief has been partly met by voluntary groups having fundamentalist sympathies. They supply aid but insist that the beneficiaries give up Gujarati and take to Urdu, adopt veil, and send their children to madrasas. Events like the desecration of Wali Gujarati’s grave have pushed one of India’s culturally richest, most diverse, vernacular Islamic traditions to the wall. Future generations will as gratefully acknowledge the sangh parivar’s contribution to the growth of radical Islam in India as this generation remembers with gratitude the contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and his cohorts to Sikh militancy.
The secularist dogma of many fighting the sangh parivar has not helped matters. Even those who have benefited from secular lawyers and activists relate to secular ideologies instrumentally. They neither understand them nor respect them. The victims still derive solace from their religions and, when under attack, they cling more passionately to faith. Indeed, shallow ideologies of secularism have simultaneously broken the back of Gandhism and discouraged the emergence of figures like Ali Shariatis, Desmond Tutus and the Dalai Lama — persons who can give suffering a new voice audible to the poor and the powerless and make a creative intervention possible from within worldviews accessible to the people.
Finally, Gujarat’s spectacular development has underwritten the de-civilising process. One of the worst-kept secrets of our times is that dramatic development almost always has an authoritarian tail. Developmental despotism and the censorship, surveillance and thought control go with it. The East Asian tigers have all been maneaters most of the time. Gujarat has now chosen to join the pack. Development in the state now justifies amorality, abridgement of freedom, and collapse of social ethics.
Is there life after Modi? Is it possible to look beyond the 35 years of rioting that began in 1969 and ended in 2002? Prima facie, the answer is “no”. We can only wait for a new generation that will, out of sheer self-interest and tiredness, learn to live with each other. In the meanwhile, we have to wait patiently but not passively to keep values alive, hoping that at some point will come a modicum of remorse and a search for atonement and that ultimately Gujarati traditions will triumph over the culture of the state’s urban middle class.
Recovering Gujarat from its urban middle class will not be easy. The class has found in militant religious nationalism a new self- respect and a new virtual identity as a martial community, the way Bengali babus, Maharashtrian Brahmins and Kashmiri Muslims at different times have sought salvation in violence. In Gujarat this class has smelt blood, for it does not have to do the killings but can plan, finance and coordinate them with impunity. The actual killers are, mostly tribals and Dalits. The middle class controls the media and education, which have become hate factories in recent times. And they receive spirited support from most non-resident Indians who, at a safe distance from India, and more nationalist, bloodthirsty, and irresponsible.
(The writer is a political psychologist.)
(Source: The Times of India, 8 Jan 2008)

Report on USA Hindu Student Council and its Hindutva Links
Executive Summary
The Hindu Students Council (HSC) is a national network of university-based organizations in the United States that purports to teach about Hindu heritage and culture. On several distinct occasions the National Office of the HSC (located in Houston, USA) has asserted that the HSC is not connected to any political movement and that it is independent of the Sangh Parivar. The UNMISTAKABLY SANGH report, however, establishes that, despite such denials, the HSC continues to be a Sangh project from its inception in 1990 into the present. In fact, the HSC remains an integral component of the Sangh Parivar’s globalizing overseas operations including as a grooming space for future Sangh workers. This report provides the first comprehensive documentation of the origins, methods and practices of the HSC. Unfortunately, many local HSC chapters and their membership may be completely unaware of the political and ideological connections between the HSC and the Sangh and continue to participate in the HSCs activities. The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) started the Truth Out on HSCs!1 Campaign last year in order to engage in a productive dialogue with local HSC chapters. Over the last several months this engagement has provided the public with a large body of evidence revealing the connections between the National HSC to the Sangh Parivar. This report is a consolidation of this evidence, along with some new evidence that we have uncovered most recently.
The HSC was founded in 1990 as a project of the VHP of America. In 1993, Ashok Singhal, the then General Secretary of the VHP declared that “Now, the first project we have in mind is strengthening the Hindu Student Council”.2 Although the National HSC now claims that the HSC “has been independently run since 1993”,3 our report documents continuous and consistent affiliations between the HSC and the Sangh into the present. In sum, this report provides detailed and well-documented evidence of the continued affiliation of the national HSC with the Sangh, Yet, in spite of this clear evidence, the national HSC continues to deny its connections with the Sangh Parivar.
While the national HSC performed an essential service for the Sangh Parivar in developing the Sangh’s electronic infrastructure, its contribution to these organizations was considerably more than creating websites for the RSS and its affiliates. Moreover, the HSC’s Freedom Festival and Dharma Conference along with other such events represent a way for Sangh ideologues to propogate their message under the cover of multiculturalism.The evidence reveals an undeniable and close alliance between the National HSC and the global Sangh.
(Compaign to Stop Funding Hate 17362 Boston Road, Hayward, CA 94541-email: hsctruthout@gmail.com)

On Communalism of the Middle Class
Pavan K. Varma to Humra Quraishi
The calamity facing this country is that the privileged lot are insensitive to the plight of those below them in the economic strata. The first floor of a building can stand only if the foundation is strong.
Communalisation of the middle class peaked after the Babri Masjid demolition. Communal feelings have not been eradicated, but most among the middle class want to move towards the secular mainstream. Communal strife, and the dislocation it causes, disrupts the middle class’s main agenda of upward mobility.
Nationalism have been twisted to suit political interests in recent years? but this is a game with diminishing returns for the manipulators.
The political class and the administrative strata are part of the middle class. The simple truth is that idealism died after 1947, and nothing has really taken its place except self-interest.
There is a need for a new breed of people in public life, and more among the middle class must take the plunge for this.
Real issues cannot be kept permanently under the carpet because the so-called underdogs vote in greater numbers than those from the middle class. If it wasn’t for democracy, the privileged would have long before carved out a republic of their own.
Education, exposure and self-interest-there is no ultimate formula for the middle class to broaden its vision, but these factors could make a difference.
Education, equitable economic growth, strengthening of the democratic process and affirmative action well implemented-these are some things that could help to contain the simmering anger among the under-privileged and the minority groups, who, too, are part of the Indian middle class?
(Source: The Week, January 13, 2008)
USA Not a Christians State
Jon Meacham, Editor of Newsweek,
The only acknowledgment of God in the original Constitution is a utilitarian one: the document is dated “in the year of our Lord 1787.” Even the religion clause of the First Amendment is framed dryly and without reference to any particular faith.
Andrew Jackson resisted bids in the 1820s to form a “Christian party in politics.” Abraham Lincoln buried a proposed “Christian amendment” to the Constitution to declare the nation’s fealty to Jesus.
The founders were not anti-religion. Many of them were faithful in their personal lives, and in their public language they evoked God. They grounded the founding principle of the nation — that all men are created equal — in the divine. But they wanted faith to be one thread in the country’s tapestry, not the whole tapestry.
(Source: The New York Times, 7 October, 2007)

DEMOCRACY
Let us Rethink Parliamentary-System
Shashi Tharoor
The parliamentary system we borrowed from the British has become, in Indian conditions, nothing but a recipe for governmental instability. And instability is precisely what India, with its critical economic and social challenges, cannot afford. We must have a system of government whose leaders can focus on governance rather on staying in power.
Once again there is talk of a new election sooner or later. But quite apart from the horrendous costs, can we, as a country, afford to keep expecting elections to provide miraculous results when we know that they are all but certain to produce inconclusive outcomes and more coalition governments? Isn’t it time we realised the problem is with the system itself?
Pluralist democracy is our greatest strength, but its current manner of operation is the source of our major weaknesses. India’s many challenges require political arrangements that permit decisive action, whereas ours increasingly promote drift and indecision. The parliamentary system has not only outlived its utility; it was from the start unsuited to Indian conditions and is primarily responsible for many of our principal political ills.
To suggest this is political sacrilege in New Delhi. None of the many politicians i have discussed this with are even willing to contemplate a change. The main reason for this is that they know how to work the present system and do not wish to alter the ways they are used to. But our reasons for choosing the British parliamentary system are themselves embedded in history.
Like the American revolutionaries of two centuries ago, Indian nationalists had fought for ‘the rights of Englishmen’, which they thought the replication of the Houses of Parliament would both epitomise and guarantee. When former British prime minister Clement Attlee suggested the US presidential system as a model to Indian leaders, “they rejected it with great emphasis. I had the feeling that they thought i was offering them margarine instead of butter.”
Even our Communists have embraced the system with great delight, revelling in their adherence to British parliamentary convention (down to the desk-thumping form of applause) and complimenting themselves on their authenticity.
Yet, the parliamentary system assumes a number of conditions which simply do not exist in India. It requires the existence of clearly-defined political parties, each with a coherent set of policies and preferences that distinguish it from the next, whereas in India a party is merely a label of convenience which a politician adopts and discards as frequently as a Bollywood film star changes costume.
The principal parties, whether ‘national’ or otherwise, are fuzzily vague about their beliefs: every party’s ‘ideology’ is one variant or another of centrist populism, and with the sole exceptions of the BJP and the Communists, their separate existence is a result of electoral arithmetic or regional identities, not political conviction.
With few exceptions, India’s parties all profess their faith in the same set of rhetorical cliches, notably socialism, secularism, a mixed economy and non-alignment, terms they are all equally loath to define. No wonder, the Communists had no difficulty signing on to the ‘Common Minimum Programme’. (The BJP used to be thought of as an exception, but in its attempts to broaden its base of support it sounds - and behaves - more or less like the other parties, except on the emotive issue of national identity.)
So, our parties are not ideologically coherent, take few distinct positions and do not base themselves on political principles. As organisational entities, therefore, they are dispensable, and are indeed cheerfully dispensed with (or split/reformed/merged/dissolved) at the convenience of politicians. The sight of a leading figure from a major party leaving it to join another or start his own - which would send shock waves through the political system in other parliamentary democracies - is commonplace, even banal, in our country. (Ajit Singh, if memory serves, has switched parties nine times in the last 15 years.)
In the absence of a real party system, the voter chooses not between parties but between individuals, usually on the basis of their caste, their public image or other personal qualities. But since the individual is elected in order to be part of a majority that will form the government, party affiliations matter.
So, voters are told that if they want an Indira Gandhi as prime minister, or Karunanidhi as their chief minister, they must vote for someone else in order to indirectly accomplish that result. It is an absurdity only the British could have devised: to vote for a legislature not to legislate but in order to form the executive.
So much for theory. But the result of the profusion of small parties is that today we have a coalition government of 20 parties, some with just one or two members of parliament, which has succeeded an earlier coalition government of 23 parties. And, as we have just seen in the debacle over the Indo-US nuclear deal - which instead of being hailed as a major diplomatic triumph for India was stymied by the opposition of the Communists, without whose votes the government would fall - a small minority can hamstring the government. Under the current system, India’s democracy is condemned to be run by the lowest common denominator - hardly a recipe for decisive action.
The disrepute into which the political process has fallen in India, and the widespread cynicism about the motives of our politicians, can be traced directly to the workings of the parliamentary system. It is time for a change.
(Source: The Times of India, 16 Dec 2007)

NATIONAL POLITICS
Return to the Spirit of 2004
Malini Parthasarathy
As a political entity, the Congress party appears singularly unable to transcend and overcome its traditional failings. As often noted, its first problem is its intrinsic vulnerability as a political organisation with its over-dependence on the political charisma of the dynastic leadership of the Nehru-Gandhis. This, in turn, shuts out the possibility of adding new heroes or heroines to its pantheon. The alacrity with which the BJP launches new leaders and new heroes, at the national level and at the level of the States even as it gives its veterans a larger-than-life stature, has a powerful pull on the public imagination. More importantly, the BJP’s continuous projection of itself as a dynamic political organisation, blending reverence for the old with a lively appreciation of the new, contrasts sharply with the self-perception of the Congress party — which in times of failure tends to retreat into a shell, emerging only to defend its leaders rather than stand by its policies or beliefs.
The Congress party’s evident demoralisation is bringing in its wake some ideological vacillation in its defence of secularism as a cardinal democratic principle. The failure to take secularism as a doctrine out of the context of Hindu-Muslim contestation has led to this sense of political vulnerability that makes the Congress weak-kneed in the face of well-scripted BJP and Hindu nationalist campaigns. As in the past, the BJP and its managers recognise that the Congress remains afraid of confronting the spectre of majoritarian communalism. The Gujarat election results and the Congress party’s defensive response have enabled the BJP to bring the issue of “minority appeasement” back on the political agenda. The party’s Prime-Minister-in-waiting, L.K. Advani, was quick to excoriate the UPA for its “soft approach to terrorism, guided by vote-bank considerations” and “emboldening the forces of jehadi terrorism.” It is clear that the BJP is continuing to rely on the strategies of majoritarian communal mobilisation for the 15th general election.
But at this moment. There is no evidence that beyond its own organisational resurgence in the wake of the election victories in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh the BJP has captured fresh political space.
The Congress as the leading party of the UPA does have a particular responsibility to highlight the imperative of secularism as a governing concept in a pluralist democracy, rather than allow a crucial component of democratic governance to be held hostage by the politics of competing communal forces. Secularism is an idea that has a resonance beyond the context of inter-communal disputes. It is a component of the democratic framework as critical as federalism or linguistic autonomy and it should be understood for what it really is — part and parcel of the democratic commitment, beyond the terrain of electoral politics.
It is for the Congress to restore the original meaning of the concept of secularism as intended by the framers of the Constitution. At this juncture when the Hindu nationalist forces believe that they have scored a point with the Gujarat election victory and therefore seek to reopen the debate on secularism in the public arena, the Congress should take the lead in this regard. The failure to explain the true significance of secularism as a far-sighted enabling measure rather than a bland barometer of the state’s neutrality is at the heart of the Congress party’s political weakness.
Another political fallacy that has served to intimidate parties and leaders seeking to uphold the validity of the constitutional framework has been the simplistic argument that once leaders and parties win elections, their ideological challenges to the democratic structure thereby become legitimate. This dangerous argument was advanced after the general election of 1980, which returned Indira Gandhi to power. Her defenders advanced the thesis that authoritarian lapses such as the Emergency were now redeemed. A similar argument in favour of the Hindutva agenda has been made in the wake of Mr. Modi’s return to the helm in Gujarat. Winning elections gives the right to leaders and parties to govern; by no stretch of imagination can this be said to endorse their actions or policies that go against the fundamental tenets of Indian democracy. The Congress party must grasp this essential point if it desires to consolidate its political space, which is under constant pressure from the forces of the Hindu Right. As the leading party in the governing coalition, the Congress cannot shy away from this responsibility if it wants to play an enduring role in India’s political life.
(Source: The Hindu, 29 January, 2008)

Rule of Law is Above Elections
Editoral The Hindustan Times, 5 Dec.,2007
On the day that, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admitted that he had been wrong to condone the violent ‘recapture’ of Nandigram by CPI(M) cadres on November 7-11, another Chief Minister Modi made his own ‘paid back in the same coin’ statement. Modi was cheered by a crowd that found comfort in a Chief Minister stating that a fake encounter killing in November 2005 had been completely valid.
The killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh wasn’t the result of a chance ‘encounter’. The issue is still being heard in the court. Elections will come and go, but Modi’s message that it’s more than all right to ‘take care’ of those accused of having ‘terrorist links’ may have struck a chord in a state where having a conscience is viewed by many as an obstacle to progress. Supreme Court should take serious note of Modi’s statement. For all purposes, he has proudly declared that it’s his duty to destroy one of the prime functions of the State toupholding the law of the land.

NATIONAL POLITICS
Third Alternative a Pipedream
Pankaj Vohra
CPI(M) knows that it is important to maintain the CPI(M)’s ideological profile in order to motivate its cadres.
The CPI(M) knows that the general elections may be round the corner and if it persists with its threat of withdrawing its support from the UPA on the nuclear issue, it will find it very difficult to align itself with either the UPA or the NDA after the poll results are out. Therefore, it has little choice but to float the idea of a third alternative comprising regional parties.
In fact, the CPI(M) has been reduced to a regional outfit. It has limited presence outside West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Its objective is to cobble up an alliance of the TDP, DMK, Samajwadi Party and National Conference, with the hope that some others like Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal, Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Ramvilas Paswan’s Janshakti Party would join it.
But the question is whether such an alliance would provide the third alternative, which in electoral terms has never worked out in Indian politics as a long-term option. Post-poll alliances are always fragile. It is unlikely that some of the parties that the CPI(M) maybe eyeing for a third alternative may join hands before the elections are held. The tie-ups for such a formation will happen only if the big two — the Congress and the BJP — fail to make the grade.
After the polls, many of the players will try to align themselves with the winning combination and the CPI(M) may be left out in the cold. Its worries may increase if the party’s seat count goes down. This maybe less than those won by an ally such as the Samajwadi Party, which would then act as the big brother.
Another significant dimension to the CPI(M)’s desire for a third alternative is whether it will enjoy any credibility among the people. In West Bengal, the Left constituents don’t see eye to eye. For instance, the CPI has asked the CPI(M) not to ignore the other allies and run the Left Front government as a one-party government.
So when the CPI(M) is unable to carry with it even those who are ideologically similar, then how will it go along with other parties which have their own regional agendas? Would it like to face the risk of allowing separatist forces and regional chauvinists to run over the national agenda? What will happen to the Indian-State if various constituents of an alliance pull it in different directions? Will it not land the CPI(M) in a mess? Won’t its credibility be in question?
At this stage, it is also very difficult to think about a central government without the Congress or the BJP acting as the glue. The performance of both the Congress and the BJP may have left a lot to be desired, but as large parties they are capable of providing stability. Also, they would ensure that regional interests do not override national interests.
The CPI(M)’s ideological purity is a myth. In 1967, 1977 and 1989, it joined hands — indirectly or directly — with the BJP, which is often flaunted as its No. 1 enemy. On the nuclear deal, the two ideologically opposite parties are in the way of any kind of consensus.
The CPI(M)’s behaviour has prompted some Left leaders outside the party to think that a third alternative at this stage will only help the BJP to rejuvenate itself. For them, the fight against communalism is foremost and any deviation from it could put this agenda on the backburner.
Today, the Left wants to keep its constituency intact by identifying itself with the pro-people measures. They claim that they were initiated by the UPA due to the Left’s pressure.
The events that are going to unfold till the Budget session would determine whether the national polls will be held this year or the next.
(Source: Hindustan Times January 27, 2008)

SC on Social Violence
“Judges tend to become Harsh in Case of Religious Violence but Apologist in Case of Caste”
“We notice that while judges tend to be extremely harsh in dealing with murders committed on account of religious factors, they tend to become more conservative and almost apologetic in cases of murders arising out of caste on the premise that society should be given time so that the necessary change comes about in the normal course,” said a Bench of Justices S.B. Sinha and H.S. Bedi.
“Has this hands-off approach led to the creation of the casteless utopia or even a perceptible movement in that direction? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’ as would be clear from mushrooming caste-based organisations controlled and manipulated by self appointed commissars, who have arrogated to themselves the right to be the sole arbiters and defenders of their castes with the license to kill and maim to enforce their diktats and bring in line those who dare to deviate. Resultantly, the idyllic situation that we perceive is as distant as ever.”
“The efficacy, or otherwise, of the death penalty is a matter of much debate in legal circles — with two diametrically opposite views on the subject. As judges applying the law, we must be alive to the needs of society and the damage which can result if a ghastly crime is not dealt with in an effective and proper manner.”
(Source: The Hindu, 9 October, 2007)

BJP Hedged in by Hindutva again
Khushwant Singh
The drubbing that the Congress got in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh state elections has changed the political map of India: The BJP now rules larger territories and people than any other party; Communists and regional parties retain their hold on states they rule. Mayawati’s BSP holds India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress party’s moral authority to govern the country has been seriously eroded. However, unpalatable this be to people of my way of thinking, we have to face the harsh reality and consider whether or not the UPA government at the centre should hold out for its full term or call for general elections earlier to renew its mandate. Virtually with only one woman as its all-India vote-catcher, its prospects look grim.
One thing is clear: we were wrong in assuming that call for Hindutva by the BJP and its allies was on deaf ears and that it has little to offer in terms of industrial and economic development. It has a mixture of both: Hindutva gives it electoral sustenance.
We need to examine why appeal to religion remains so important to us Indians who otherwise pretend to be secular. I believe its roots lie in xenophobia—dislike of what we conceive as foreign elements.
It started with Muslim invaders of our country. It spread to those who converted to Islam. No matter how much descendants of Muslim invaders Indianised themselves, the feeling of resentment against them took deep roots in our minds. Then came Europeans—Portuguese, Dutch, French and the British. They brought Christianity. Our freedom movement first targeted the British, Mahatma Gandhi, who led this movement, did his best to separate anti-British feeling from reservations against Muslims. He succeeded in doing so for some years but was defeated by the partition of the country, which was supported by the majority of Muslims. His martyrdom and the long rule of Pandit Nehru, our first PM, kept the Hindu resentment against Muslims subdued. Then it burst in the open with the RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal.
The BJP is the chief beneficiary of this anti-Muslim sentiment. Its leaders, mainly L.K.Advani, incited Hindu mobs to destroy the Babri Masjid. Not one of them has even bothered to tender an apology to the Muslims. At least three more historic mosques were on their hit list. I do not know whether or not they are still marked for destruction. Meanwhile, the target has shifted to Christians and their churches in Orissa. I only hope my analysis of the saffron upsurge flawed.
(Source: The Hindustan Times, January 11, 2008)

Painful Gujarat Lesson for INC
Suman K. Jha
Most of the ‘imports’ from other parties managed to hoodwink the party. The alliance with the self-styled Patel leaders, who many Congress leaders of Gujarat thought would win them additional votes, was the biggest hoax. The Keshubhai Patel acolytes, if anything, might have turned away a good number of non-Patel voters. Cronies of the RSS swayamsevak-turned-Congressman were more interested in fighting elections.
The Congress’s Gujarat campaign left a lot to be desired. It was left to president Sonia Gandhi to lend a face to the Gujarat unit.
The state leadership, aided by a band of BJP rejects, was faced with a peculiar situation-the society at large stood divided, and any statement on Godhra was liable to be misconstrued “as pandering to Muslim sentiments”. The Gujarat Congress had one request to its central leadership-keep off Godhra.
For a Gujarat leader this might have made sense, but the party’s silence over the 2002 riots would have questioned its very credibility.
Godhra, the epicentre of the 2002 riots, voted for the Congress.
The Congress spokespersons’ flip-flop-flip reflected an acute ideological incoherence-apart from the disconnect between the state and central units of the party. Later, in post-mortem meetings, senior leaders like Arjun Singh and Pranab Mukherjee stressed on the need for a “relentless struggle” against “communal and divisive politics”.
Sonia is believed to have asked if the entry of the “outsiders with an RSS background” has helped the party in any manner. Party old-timers felt that the question was long overdue, especially when its Gujarat and even Maharashtra units have come to resemble “a Congress with palpable shades of saffron”.
One immediate lesson from the Gujarat verdict was that the party would think a number of times before admitting rebels in poll-bound states, like Karnataka. On the strategy of not projecting a chief ministerial candidate, a large section still believes that it helped the party put up a ‘united face’ in the election.
A Cabinet reshuffle would bear a distinct imprint of Rahul Gandhi. Apart from the Young Turks’ debut in the Union Cabinet, the universalisation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act would get utmost priority.
(Source: The Week, January 13, n2008)

GUJARAT ELECTION
Touch and go
Rajeev Deshpande,
As the government seeks an “India-specific” agreement with IAEA, voices in the Left against precipitating polls have gained strength. If it was argued previously that Left’s current strength of 59 Lok Sabha MPs is “abnormal” and that an election will only bring it to a more usual 40-45, this sounds less assuring now. Post-Nandigram, the appetite for elections has declined sharply.
All this does not mean that the Left is prepared to surrender. Karat, and most of the Left pantheon, is dead against the nuke deal. They are loath to allow its operationalisation as they see the US as the great Satan just as the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini did. “We can still stop the deal,” a CPI leader says. But there is a reluctant appreciation that polls are not a preferred option, the Left needs time to mend.
For very different reasons, Congress, too, does not want polls. Sonia would know only too well that the crunch time for her government is not too far away. How belligerent would the comrades be when it comes to initialling the draft with IAEA? Once this is done, the nuke deal would be on autopilot as those familiar with the pact know. The Congress strategy so far has been to break a bitter pill into small bits, but the big hurdle is approaching.
There are other issues on Sonia’s mind as well. Son Rahul has taken on a party job and she will watch his progress carefully. She will also be aware of Congress’s electoral weak spots, the party’s dependence on her as vote-catcher and the need to keep her alliances going.
While Left-Congress dynamic is still in favour of the comrades, there are enough reasons for both sides to avoid a showdown. both sides play for time.
Rather belatedly, Congress has tried to mollify the BJP leadership. But it come too late.. The mistakes in handling BJP reflect the Prime Minister over-reliance on bureaucrats and Mishra.
No party has a clear assessment in any party of the endgame. A key determinant would be the December Gujarat polls. If Congress stages the decade’s biggest upset, it will call the shots, having displaced all other “minority” champions.
Losing Gujarat would be catastrophic for BJP. Its official faction will establish a stranglehold on the party, fuelling infighting. A BJP win might prompt the Left and Congress to put their discord on the backburner. But the essential element of trust, or at least the preparedness to pull along, has been replaced by suspicion and loathing.
For the moment, the government is lurching towards the New Year, with both Congress and Left sporting bloody noses. What will give both food for thought is that even after a mid-term poll, they may still have to do business with each other.
(Source: The Times of India, 2 December, 2007)

Gujarat Elections: some Reflections
Ramaswamy R. Iyer
What does the recent Gujarat election mean? Three observations are warranted. There is no doubt that Modi has won a remarkable victory. In the absence of complaints to the contrary, the elections must be presumed to have been free and fair. This is a demonstration of Indian democracy. We may not rejoice at the result. Democracy does not guarantee that only the sanest and noblest will be elected. In this case, a person about whom many thinkers in the country have profound misgivings has been elected. Our celebration of Indian democracy has to be tempered by the realisation that this can happen.
Has the election vindicated him? Was he being unduly demonised? Were we all wrong about Gujarat 2002? Must we change our thinking? The answer is a clear ‘no.’ Our judgment about Modi is indeed a matter for examination, but the election results have no bearing on that examination. Either Modi was the demon that he was said to be, or he was not. If he was, it was right to describe him so; there is then no question of demon-ising, much less “unduly.” If he was not, it was simply wrong to have so described him. What is the truth? We can draw our inferences from a study of what happened in 2002, the manner in which the Gujarat Government responded to the outbreak of violence, the Chief Minister’s role in that context, the inferences that can be drawn from the Tehelka tapes (if they are authentic), his impugned election speeches, and the Election Commission’s finding on them. Plenty of material is available: reports by persons such as Harsh Mander, Swami Agnivesh, the National Human Rights Commission, and so on, and now the Tehelka tapes. What is needed is a proper investigation. Investigations and consequential action must not be put off merely because he is back as Chief Minister with a strong popular mandate. Those who boasted on camera about criminal actions must be brought to book. State failure and possible complicity must be looked into, and the officials concerned proceeded against. If the trail leads to the Chief Minister, that too must be followed up and action taken. The election changes none of this. One has to state this obvious position because media reports seem to take it for granted that the elections have indeed changed everything; they have begun to portray Modi in admiring, flattering terms.
Finally, what matters is not the future of Modi but that of Gujarat. It would be comforting to think that the people of Gujarat have voted for good governance and for personal efficiency and integrity, but that would be a delusion. Perceptions of good governance — may have played a part, but the people were also responding to Mr. Modi’s roaring Hindutva rhetoric, and to his appeal to Gujarati pride.
There may be some — perhaps not a small number — who think otherwise, but their voices are not heard.
What should worry us, then, is not whether Modi is a demon, but the change in the Gujarati psyche. What has happened to Gujarat? Is it still redeemable?
( Source: The Hindu, 5 January, 2008)

POLITICAL REPRESETATION
Inclusiveness In A Democracy
Political Representation Of Muslims In India: Iqbal A. Ansari;
Review By Balraj Puri
Iqbal Ansari has painstakingly collected authentic election data about each state and each constituency of the Assemblies and the Lok Sabha. About 300 pages of data could be of further use for many micro studies. He cites a series of pre-Independence commitments by the Congress and its leaders from 1927 to 1946 which favoured reservation for minorities or some variations of proportional representation system to ensure that representation of minorities, in particular Muslim s, in legislatures would be no less than their proportion in population.
But the shock of the Partition and the communal holocaust that followed it changed the popular mindset representing the new national mood. Sardar Patel told the Lok Sabha, “The provision of population based quota of seats was adopted as a compromise between ‘pure nationalism’ and ‘pure communalism’ to prevent the partition.” He added, “The vast majority of the minority communities have themselves realised the evil effects in the past of such reservation on the minorities themselves.” A minority member Tajammul Hussain endorsing the same viewpoint declared, “The term minority is a British creation. The British have gone and minorities have gone with them. Remove the term minority from your dictionary. There is no minority here.”
Threat to secularism
Exclusively religious based identities were now widely considered to be a threat to the ideal of secular nationalism.
Otherwise too, Muslim clout in India was grossly reduced by division of Muslim population into two and later three countries. The role of Muslims of India further suffered a setback when most of the elite, political, social, intellectual, professional and bureaucratic Muslims migrated to the new Muslim country. Khaliquz Zman, a Muslim League member of the Constituted Assembly, in a last ditch effort to plead for a separate electorate begged the House to cast away old suspicions about the Muslims, pledging that their loyalty to India was sincere. But soon after, he too left for greener pastures across the border, thus casting doubts about such pledges for loyalty.
Representation
Ansari also has a grievance against the political parties which do not nominate Muslim candidates in proportion to their population. But in Gujarat, the Congress was battling for its survival in a communally surcharged atmosphere. If it had nominated more Muslims, it would not have secured even the number of seats that it had won.
It is doubtful if political parties would agree to amend the People’s Representation Act to make them accountable for any persistent under representation of minorities and to make them nominate a fair share of minority candidates, as the author suggests.
The present system, first past the post, admittedly leaves, a large portion of population unrepresented. It is conceivable that votes polled by a party may be more than those of the party which has won a majority of the seats.
Other systems, he proposes, include variations of proportional representation like single transferable vote or list systems. But how to allocate surplus votes from a constituency? To parties based on different ideologies, castes, ethnic groups or religious identities? If Muslims form a single party, cutting across other entities that divide other communities, would not it cause a backlash in the majority community and encourage it to form a single party? Would not Muslims be worst sufferers, in that case?
Multiple identities
In a plural democratic society, Muslims have a right for a distinct identity. But no single identity can satisfy all human urges. Muslims like any other citizens do belong to different ideologies, classes and ethnic groups. If these and many other such identities are ignored, it would suffocate their growth. Moreover, multiple identities connect them to other communities which give them more chances of getting elected and secularising the party.
For instance, the Muslim-Yadav combination stemmed the Hindutva wave, which had originated after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In 2002, a similar combination of castes, led by a Dalit leader Mayawati, almost wiped out the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Contrary to the author’s belief, caste is the greatest secularising force in India.
As a practical course, all secular forces, including Muslims, should work for implementation of the Sachar Committee Report. For instance, all benefits guaranteed to the Hindu Scheduled Castes, including political reservation, should be extended to the SC Muslims also, just as they are extended to Buddhists and Sikhs. OBC Muslims should also be treated like OBC Hindus. The 15-point programme for the economic benefits of the minorities should also be welcome. Let us see the results of these efforts before diverting attention to alternative suggestions.
(Source: The Hindu, 15 January, 2008)

POLITICAL REPRESETATION
Votebank Politics
Madhav Godbole, Former Home Secretary
The electoral leverage of Muslims has gone up since the Partition with the percentage of Muslims in the total population going up from about 9 percent in 1947 to 10.7 in 1961 and 13.4 percent in 2001. This is partly due to the higher rate of growth of Muslim population as compared to non-Muslims. It must be recognized that a large section of Hindus never vote as Hindus or BJP. The share of Muslim vote in BJP’s total vote tally had been just about 3 percent though in the 1998 elections it had gone up to 6.8 percent. Thus, even BJP has no option. Advani’s speech during his visit to Pakistan in 2005 eulogizing Jinnah must be seen in this context. In today’s Pakistan hardly any minorities are left! Neither does that country believe in secularism. But, the real target audience of Advani was the Muslims in India. He was trying to get closer to them by praising Jinnah who is held in high esteem by them. Politically, he had to pay a heavy price for this in his own party but the importance of this event must be seen in the larger and long-term context.
It is important to note that the Muslim League did not even figure among the twenty principal political parties in India, which accounted for 514 out of total of 543 seats (94.7 percent) and 89.82 percent of the vote, in the 13th Lok Sabha (1999). But, contrary to what Jinnah had believed, Muslims do not need the ML any longer, with all political parties in the race for getting Muslim vote. The Muslim support for the Congress has gone down in recent years, particularly after the wanton demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. The parties, which have mainly benefited from this, are the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and the parties which were earlier part of the United Front and now the UPA. With the decline of the Congress party, division of the Hindu votes, and emergence of regional parties, the tussle for garnering Muslim votes has perceptibly increased.
In Bengal, UP, Bihar and some other states, Muslim vote has become decisive for the electoral fate of political parties. Jinnah could not have visualized such a scenario with his mindset of perpetual Hindu domination in free India. A disturbing development is the sizeable success of the Assam United Democratic Front in the Assembly elections in April 2006.
To put it differently, despite being poor, disadvantaged, discriminated against, and disempowered in any number of ways, Muslims are able to articulate their preferences and agency – given an opportunity, they display a readiness to take up the challenge and to alter their material condition through political action.
It is against the background that the preoccupation of political parties with Muslim vote-bank must be seen. Kripalani, in his presidential address at the AICC session at Meerut on 23 November 1946 had brought out the concerns, which were weighing on the minds of Congress leaders before the partition. Kripalani had underlined, “The masses act as tools in the hands of the clever, and often, unscrupulous politicians….Congress must yield to the demands of the minorities, Muslims or any other, but not at the expense of the good of the nation. Such yielding in the past has largely been responsible for our present troubles……I hope our elders will guard themselves and the country against being coerced or cajoled into making any anti-national and undemocratic compromises in the future.” As can be seen from the analysis hereafter, this statement is as valid if not more valid today.
It would have been understandable if the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) had been permitted to lapse by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government in 1993 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) had been repealed by UPA in September 2004 on the ground that these enactments were scrapped was the demand of the so-called “secular” political parties that these enactments were anti-Muslim. How these enactments were scrapped to appease the Muslim vote-bank.
In the Indian context, it will not be wrong to say that religion has been used, time and again, by political parties to garner votes. The best example of this is the Shah Bano case in which the Supreme Court gave a judgment on 23 April 1985 that a Muslim ex-husband will have to pay maintenance to his divorced wife till she remarries, even after payment of her dower and maintenance of her iddat period, and that in the case of conflict between Section 125 Criminal Procedure Code and the Muslim personal law, the former will prevail. The Muslim community regarded this as a clear interference with the Shariat (Muslim personal law) and their freedom of religion and conscience contained in Articles 25, 26 and 29 of the Constitution of India. Succumbing to the pressure of Muslims, Rajiv Gandhi government enacted the Muslim Women’s Bill to overturn the Supreme Court judgment. Neerja Chowdhury, in an article in The Statesman (1.5.1986) had stated, “There is evidence of a connection between then opening of the doors of the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi [temple] in Ayodhya and the introduction of the Muslim Women’s Bill in Parliament both of which have heightened communal tension in the country. Later, during the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid agitation in 1992, the reluctance of Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, to dismiss the UP government and impose President’s Rule, was in no small measure due to the fears in the Congress party of antagonizing the Hindu public opinion.
The misuse of religious places for communal propaganda and even terrorist activities has been a matter of concern for quite a few years. Keeping this in view, the Religious Institutions (Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1988, was passed by Parliament with great fanfare. Its provisions prohibit the use of any religious place for the promotion or propagation of any political activity, harbouring of any person accused or convicted of any offence under any law, storing of any arms and ammunition, erecting or putting up of any construction or fortification and so on. The Act prohibits the use of funds of religious institutions for certain activities. The offences under the Act are punishable with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to five years and with a fine up to Rs 10, 000. The Act has remained a dead letter as the governments of all hues are reluctant to act hereunder, religious cummunities due to the apprehensions of displeasing the Muslims. Same has been the fate of sections 153 and 153A of the Indian Penal Code meant to deal with wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause communal riot, and promoting enmity between classes. There have been hardly any prosecutions under these sections, and remarkably fewer still are the convictions obtained hereunder.
Populist declaration of Prophet’s birthday as a national holiday by V.P. Singh government, announcement of Friday as a holiday for schools in Muslim-majority districts areas and creation of Kozhikode and Palaghat Muslim majority districts in Kerala are just a few examples of how political have continued to woo the Muslims. State subsidy for Haj pilgrims must not be available even in Muslim countries. Such are the imperatives of electoral politics that even the BJP dominated NDA government not only continued the scheme but even enlarged its largesse.
Speaking at an election rally in Bihar in September 2004, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the then prime minister, had made an announcement of appointment of two crore Urdu teachers, when in the three states of Bihar, UP and Delhi, where Urdu has been made the second official language, the total number of Urdu teachers did not exceed one lakh. In the same rally, he had announced a grant of Rs 74 crore for students studying in madarsas. Needless to say, these blatantly populist announcements, made without any forethought, have remained on paper.
The same was true in respect of the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) (IMDT) Act, 1983, which has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in July 2005. The only mechanism which finally proved effective in getting the Act scrapped was a PIL! This patently unconstitutional and absurd legislation, which was applicable only to Assam and was clearly meant to give protection to and encourage illegal migration from Bangladesh, continued in existence for over twenty-one years, in spite of clamour for its repeal. This speaks volumes about the vote-bank politics in the country. The BJP had been objecting to this enactment for years. It is true that NDA did not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha to have the Act repealed. But, if a joint session of Parliament could be called to get the POTA enacted, it could also have been called to repeal the IMDT Act. Obviously, BJP did not want to displease the Muslims beyond a point.
For the Assembly elections in Bihar on October-November 2005, Ram Vilas Paswan, leader of Lok Janashakti Party (LJP), in a brazen effort to appease the Muslim community, had declared that if his party was voted to power he would appoint a Muslim as the chief minister. In fact, this had been his pre-condition for entering into alliance with other political parties ever since the elections held in February 2005. The Left parties were supporting Paswan in these antics. It is not surprising that the Election Commission of India issued a notice to Paswan for soliciting votes in the name of religion. As if this was not enough, during the February 2005 election campaign in Bihar, Paswan had drafted a look-alike of jehadi icon Osama bin Laden for his campaign in Muslim dominated areas. The Laden duplicate was seen sharing [TV] screen space with Paswan at most of his election rallies. That look-alike shifted loyalty later and was seen in the company of Paswan’s arch rival RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav in the election campaign in October 2005! (ET, 21.10.2005)
Preoccupation with Muslim vote-bank politics now dictates even the country’s foreign policy. During the interview with NDTV in New York on 19 September 2005, K. Natwar Singh, the then External Affairs minister, argued that India could not ignore Iran because the “sensitivities” of its 150 million Muslims, a significant number of whom are Shias.”(IE, 21.9.2005) A rally was held in Lucknow by leftist political parties, Samajwadi Party and others on 13 November 2005 to bring pressure on the UPA government to change its policy on Iran. When a presentation on the proposed Indo-US nuclear agreement was made by the national security advisor to the core group of the Congress party in January 2006, a strong view was expressed that the government should not finalize the deal till the Assembly elections in West Bengal, Assam and Kerala are over as Muslims would vote against the Congress party if it was seen as a close ally of US.
The latest in this unending series of short-sighted actions is the effort of the UPA government to allocate outlays for various social schemes as per the share of minorities in the total population. This is reported to be in spite of the advice of the Ministry of Law that it would be unconstitutional to do so. Such actions have been responsible for perpetuating the separate identity of the Muslims and increasing the divide between them and other communities. It has also led to a backlash among the Hindus.
(Source: The Partition in Retrospect)

IDENTITY
Exclusion, Identity and Muslim Women-I
Sameera Khan
This essay attempts to examine how being a member Muslim minority impacts a woman’s access, experience and negotiation of public space. More specifically, it looks at Muslim women in Mumbai and explicitly interrogates their relationship to public space in terms of accessibility, usage, and restrictive boundaries. The essay inquires specific areas of concern – whether living in Muslim ‘mohallas’ has a bearing on Muslim women’s spatial mobility; if the controls wielded by neo-fundamentalist groups limit their participation in public space; if wearing the veil in fact facilitates movement; how the issue of civic safety is framed in the context of Muslim women whose entire community’s safety is often at risk; and finally, in what way does their community’s growing exclusion from the everyday civic and political life of the city impact them. Thus in a larger sense the essay asks, how and to what extent their community identity inflects women’s access to public space4 and their ability to engage risk.
The essay begins by laying out the particularities of Muslims in Mumbai, thus attempting to establish the long relationship that diverse Muslim groups have had with the city. It acknowledges the role of the 1992-93 communal riots in changing the social geography of the city and deliberates over the increased exclusion and ghettoisation of Muslims as a result of it. Finally, by examining the impact of community exclusion on Muslim women, the essay attempts to link together the issue of access to public space with concerns of exclusion, risk, civic and cultural safety.
Globally, Islam and Muslims are increasingly being equated with terrorism and religious hysteria.7 The debates on them have got more strident, confused and much nastier. In India in the last two decades, where communal politics, has intensified and right wing fundamentalist factions have consolidat ed their hold across religions, not only has there been a visible increase in the incidents of violence against minorities, both Muslims and Christians, but also the violence itself has become more intense and frenzied.This was especially noticeable in the nation-wide violence that broke out after the demolition of the Babri masjid in 1992 and in the specific targeting of Muslim women during the Gujarat riots of 2002.
In Mumbai, there is a noticeable hardening in the attitude towards Muslims and studies in different areas of the city reveal that negative feelings towards Muslims uniformly prevail across lines of class and locality. The tendency by the non-Muslims is to view Muslim men as aggressors – with “abusive”, “dominating”, and “dirty” being some of the phrases routinely used by non-Muslim respondents to describe them – and to paint Muslim women as victims of their own men and community. When asked to describe what they thought were the unsafe areas in the city, the answers, almost consistently, were: “Muslim dominated areas like Bhendi Bazaar, Dongri, Mumbra”. Had they ever been there? “No”. Did they know any one who had been there and been attacked? “No”. Their reasons for feeling the way they did? “The men have beards, look dangerous and have a weird appearance”. Did they think that they may be prejudiced? No.8
As Robinson (2005) says, “Categorised as ‘Other’, taunted as Pakistani if not vilified as terrorist, the Muslim in India today is an anonymous and frightening figure. Fear and anonymity are, of course, crucial to the maintenance of cultures of hostility and violence.”
Muslim groups have lived in Mumbai for about 700 years. Currently about 17 per cent10 of Greater Mumbai’s 12 million population is Muslim11 and these have come from various parts of the country, particularly from the Konkan coast, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, the Deccan, and Kerala. Most of these are selfemployed as traders in retail and wholesale businesses, or working in the unorganised manufacturing sector – mainly in sweatshops and ‘karkhanas’ producing ‘zari’ embroidery, leather, readymade clothes, shoes, and bags. If they are in the service sector, it is mostly at the lowest levels as electricians, plumbers, garage mechanics, watchmen or taxi drivers.
Historically, the Muslims of Mumbai have never been a single entity.12 Thus, the Muslim presence in Mumbai has always been marked by heterogeneity. Besides the general doctrinal classification of shia and sunni further divided as the deobandis and barelwis among the sunnis), the city’s Muslims can be categorised in several different ways including by place of origin, language, occupation, class and caste. The major groups in the city are the dawoodi bohras, the sulaimani bohras, the aga khani khojas, the halai memons, the kutchie memons, the konkani Muslims, the north Indian UP and Bihari Muslims, the moplas, the deccanis and the Iranis. In fact, by some estimates, Mumbai has the most heterogeneous grouping of Muslims than any other city in south Asia.
A sizeable percentage of Mumbai’s Muslims – as well as the city’s other communities – have historically lived in communitybased enclaves in areas such as Mohammed Ali Road, Bhendi Bazaar, Pydhoni, Dongri, Nagpada, Madanpura and Mahim, which are the older and more congested parts of the city, and still others have dominated parts of Wadala, Sewri and Jogeshwari east. Prior to the 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai – which for the first time engulfed the city as a whole sparing neither slums nor lower middle class tenements and not even the middle and upper middle class neighbourhoods – many Muslims also lived in mixed housing colonies and settlements. Poor Muslims, who form a substantial percentage of the city’s slum population, lived in mixed slums and shantytowns in Dharavi, Govandi, Behrampada and Cheetah camp.13 Middle class and professional Muslims preferred multi-community suburbs such as Bandra, Andheri, Mazgaon, and Byculla, in some cases even establishing their own little pockets of dominance there.
However after the riots, in which over a thousand people, mainly Muslims, were killed in mob rioting and by the police, the city’s social geography underwent a radical change. Aside from the thousands of migrants from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, who left the city never to return, other Muslims, lived in mixed areas or housing colonies consciously chose to move to neighbourhoods dominated by Muslims in order to feel more physically secure, into those where they were already in reasonable numbers. Some already dense Muslim dominated neighbourhoods of south and central Mumbai – Nagpada, Madanpura and Bhendi Bazaar – others moved outwards to Jogeshwari (west), Kurla, Malvani (Malad) and Govandi. Middle-class Muslims were attracted to the Millat Nagar complex in Andheri West while poorer Muslims sought refuge in the Bharat Nagar slums in Bandra East. Still others went to live in the extended suburbs of Mira Road in north-west Mumbai and Mumbra in Thane district Exclusion and the Mumbai Muslim Spatial reorganisation of the city along with a significant “sense of separateness” between the Muslims and the non-Muslims has been the lasting legacy of the 1992-93 Mumbai riots. Popular involvement in these riots was more widespread and vicious with slum dwellers, the middle class, local ‘dadas’, and petty landlords all joining the right wing Shiv Sena party in a pogrom against the Muslims, with the police and state remaining not just ineffective but in some cases actively supportive of the violence. Clearly, the attempt was to ethnically cleanse the city and its neighbourhoods of the Muslim “other” and the Shiv Sena’s targeting of Muslims was to some extent even a preplanned effort in order to intimidate them and drive them away.
Whether the riots caused the demise of the city’s erstwhile cosmopolitanism or merely proved that this cosmopolitanism had not been uniformly shared by all social groups or classes – and thus could be ingeniously eroded upon when faced with Shiv Sena’s brand of militant urban politics and a collapsing manufacturing economy – what is clearly evident is that they caused an almost irreparable damage to the social and political fabric of Mumbai city. It is now commonly acknowledged that the riots, in conjunction with the bomb blasts that followed in March 1993, have communalised relations between Muslims and other communities to such an extent that the Mumbai Muslim is now a pariah, increasingly marginalised from the mainstream, displaced and excluded from many of the city’s heterogeneous spaces. Most specifically, Muslims find themselves victims of a spatially divided city whereby they are progressively debarred from accessing mixed housing, where members of all communities can reside, as well as from doing business in heterogeneous areas.
As Ravinder Kaur (2005) points out, communal violence is essentially committed to alter urban spaces. It is in the oftneglected aftermath of communal violence that “crucial postviolence socio-spatial rearrangements take place”. Anti-minority violence does not just keep the traditional community boundaries in place, rather it pushes these boundaries further afar. Thus “physical violence becomes both the occasion and agency for purifying entire mohallas, or neighbourhoods, ofthe polluting ‘Other’... where undesirable elements – members of the ‘other’ community, their property and places of worship – are removed and boxed into ghetto-like locations” .
Spatial divisions have certainly hardened in the city and where you live – and indeed where your children go to school or play – is no longer a matter of choice, even if you have the right money, class and professional background, as much as “what is your last name?” . Muslims and intentionally denied access to mixed housing, both rental and ownership, They retreat to homogeneous community dominated localities because they felt physically safer and less at risk from violence. Muslims get increasingly circumscribed in specific identifiable localities.
As parts of Mumbai get labelled as “Muslim ghettos”, they simultaneously also get branded as “mini-Pakistans” and as areas harbouring so-called criminals and terrorists. While researching issues of women and public space, we found that Muslims are almost uniformly referred to as “threatening” just as their mohallas are tagged as “unsafe”. Similar labels are applied to even middleclass Muslim housing colonies by their non-Muslim neighbours residing in the adjoining complex. As a result, many Muslim respondents in the city report feeling more threatened as a community even as they appear to others as more of a threat.
If ghettoisation implies complete insularity from the outside world, then all Muslim-dominated areas in the city do not experience it similarly. Unlike cities like Ahmedabad, where the experience of ghettoisation is known to be uniformly stark and in your face, in Mumbai the experiences of Muslim ghettoisation range from the subtle, like in parts where there is often some amount of intermixing between communities, to the ruthless, such as in Mumbra where exclusion ranks high.
Eventually ghettoisation has very adverse social, psychological and political consequences. Since groups such as Muslims and dalits often live in localities that are imprisoned either by spatial or community location, their social existence results in political ineffectiveness. It reinforces tendencies of minoritarianism which promotes a genre of politics based on internal consolidation of the community and also militancy. The impact of these processes on the future peace of the city is also damaging. When migration takes place from communally heterogeneous to communally homogeneous neighbourhoods, the segregation makes it difficult for cross-community neighbourhood groups and bonds to be formed. The interaction between communities in everyday social and economic civic settings is particularly crucial for the less empowered groups within communities such as women. The impact of community exclusion on their lives is most stark and telling.
(To be Continued)
(Source: New Age weekly, January 13-19, 2008)

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Eleventh Five Year Plan
Provisions for Minorities (Extracts)
6.155. Though previous five year plans have attempted to focus on weaker sections, they have failed to include many groups, especially Muslims into the development net. The 11th Plan will therefore accord the highest priority to the development of innovative programmes, expansion of existing schemes, implementation and monitoring of all initiatives for Minorities by making adequate budgetary allocations at every level of governance. The 11th Plan agenda for empowerment of Minorities will focus on:
• Access, retention and achievement in primary, elementary and higher education, with particular emphasis on the education of the minority girl child, especially Muslim girl child.
• Enhanced access to credit and subsidy for self-employment, export promotion of traditional crafts, upgradation of technical skills, provision of vocational training with forward linkages in terms of employment, equal opportunity in public and private sector employment.
• Access to government schemes and programmes, including schemes aimed at poverty alleviation, provision of physical infrastructure such as housing, provision of civil amenities and health infrastructure in Muslim dominated village clusters and urban neighbourhoods, as envisaged underPM’sNew15-Point Programme, Multisectoral Plan for Minority Concentration Districts and 338 Towns with Substantial Minority Population.
• Create a National Data Bank to collect data on various aspects of socio-religious communities through comprehensive surveys on education, health, access to government, access to justice, situation of girls and women; also qualitative studies to understand the persisting bottlenecks in access to a wide range of government services and programmes, to understand patterns of discrimination and its socioeconomic implications; to suggest long and short term remedies; to understand regional variations in the condition of Minorities from the perspective of plan interventions.
• In-depth evaluation and performance reviews of a host of institutional mechanisms including the NMDFC and the MAEF to improve their efficacy and suggest other institutional innovations.
• Establish measurable, monitorable outcomes and set up national-level monitoring mechanisms for all aspects of plans, programmes and schemes intended to benefit Minorities, particularly poor Muslims.
6.156. In implementing this agenda, the Plan will recognize the heterogeneous nature of different minority groups and the need for common as well as targeted interventions based on differential situations.
Education and Social Security
6.157. The Government is committed to mainstreaming Minorities in the process of economic growth. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) will ensure universal coverage for the children of educationally backward sections, with special focus on Muslim girls. Specific SSAcomponents like the centrally funded KBGVs will be set up for Minorities. At the same time, all State plans to access SSA funds, will be reviewed to ensure that Minority children have equal space to participate in the State’s school system. As SSA only covers children upto elementary education (Class 8), measures will be undertaken to ensure that minority children have equal access to education upto senior secondary level (Class 12). The 11th Plan will also look at issues like recruitment of female teachers, provision of amenities and transportation to reach schools, setting up of girl’s hostels and girls schools.
6.158. In pursuance of the guidelines issued under Prime Minister’s New 15-Point Programme, scholarships schemes viz. - Prematric, Post-matric and Merit-cum-Means Based for Minority Students will be formulated and implemented in the Eleventh Plan. The objective of Pre-Matric Scholarships will be to provide scholarships to minority students from class I to class X for general and/or technical and vocational courses. Similarly, the Post-Matric Scholarship scheme will cover minority students studying in class XI and XII for general as well as technical and vocational courses. Major thrust will be on education of girls. Merit and Means Based scholarship scheme will provide scholarships to meritorious students from poor families to pursue technical and professional courses. In order to ensure effective implementation of the new 15-Point Programme in letter and spirit, rigorous and continuous monitoring will be ensured. All State governments will be required to submit half-yearly reports on their plans and achievements in reaching minority populations for elementary, secondary and senior secondary education. These reports will be made available in the public domain. Besides, periodic reviews will also be undertaken by the Committee of Secretaries and the Cabinet.
6.159. Concerted efforts will be made to ensure that universally available services under ICDS, NHRM etc reach the localities where Minorities live. Minority leaders will be roped in to communicate public health messages and dispel existing myths.As Muslims are mostly self employed and working in professions like weaving, spinning, dyeing etc which lead to occupational ailments, appropriate health services will be made available. State governments will be required to report their achievements in terms of minority access to these services to the Planning Commission.
Employment and Skill Development
6.160.Amajority of the Muslim workforce is self-employed and engages in artisanal work. Deskilling is taking place and artisans and vendors are being forced to move to unskilled, informal work. The 11th Plan recognizes the need to support to these artisanal groups. Consequently, schemes of Ministry of Textiles, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises,Agro and Rural Industries, Food Processing Industries among others will be revised to accommodate the interests of the minority community workers who are in distress. Provision of inputs including credit, design and marketing support will be undertaken. At the same time social security measures like health and life insurance will be provided.
6.161. Priority sector lending: Access of Muslims to bank credit including priority sector advances is low and inadequate. To empower Muslims economically it is necessary to support self-employed persons by ensuring smooth flow of credit to them. During the 11th plan period all public sector banks shall have targets for priority sector advances to members of Minorities, particularly Muslims.
New Scheme For Development Of Minority Concentrated Areas
6.162. As many pockets with substantial minority population, continue to lack adequate physical and social infrastructure, the Eleventh Plan will adopt an area-based approach. According to the 2001 Census, 1228 Community Development Blocks (out of total 6406 in the country), 338 class I towns, and 156 districts have minority population of25%and above. Both infrastructure development (physical, electricity and roads etc. i.e. development of amenities) and beneficiary oriented programmes will be launched in these areas.
6.163. To ensure comprehensive development through a multi-sectoral approach, 90 Minority Concentration Districts (MCDs) covering 34 per cent of the minority population in the country, have been identified on the basis of either human development indicators or basic amenities indicators. The human indicators included are: i) literacy rate of Minorities; ii) female literacy rate; iii) work participation rate; and iv) female work participation. The basic amenities indicators included are: i) percentage of households with walls; ii) percentage of households with safe drinking water facilities; iii) percentage of households with electricity; and iv) percentage of households withW/Clatrines.
The identification of the MCDs was also based upon certain population norms:
a. Districts where minority population is at least 25% of the total population were identified in 29 States/UTs.
b. Districts having a minority population exceeding 5 lakhs where the percentage of minority population is between 20 and25%were identified in 29 States/UTs.
c. Six minority concentrated States/UTs, (Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab and Lakshadweep), districts having 15% minority population other than the Minorities (e.g. other than Muslims in Jammu & Kashmir, other than Christians in Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland, Punjab and Lakshadweep).
6.164. The effort is to improve the socio-economic conditions through provision of better infrastructure for education, health, sanitation, housing, safe drinking water, promotion of income generating opportunities, skill development and marketing supports.
6.165. Furthermore, about 35.7% Muslims live in urban areas and 36.92% of them are below the poverty line.
6.166. Using socio-economic indicators similar to the ones used for MCDs, 338 towns/cities having 25%or more population of minority communities were identified. Of these 338 towns/cities, 251 have emerged as relatively backward and in need of urgent attention. Programmes for the provision and development of amenities and infrastructure should immediately be taken up in these towns and cities.
6.167. The endeavour in the 11th Plan will be to ensure the availability of all essential amenities in not just the identified MCDs and towns/ cities, but in all the other minority localities as well.
Security and Freedom from Suspicion
6.168. In keeping with the CMP commitment for security and justice for Minorities, efforts will be made to carry out interventions which ensure prevention of communal violence. A comprehensive communal violence legislation will be enacted and justice and reparations will be ensured for survivors of communal crimes. Minorities, especially Muslims are under- represented in Public Security and Defense Institutions. This will be remedied.Workshops will be carried out to sensitise law enforcers and ensure that youth are not harassed simply because they profess a certain faith.
Linguistic Minorities
6.169. Linguistic Minorities living in relative social and economic backwardness and in need of preservation of their culture and language will be paid special attention. Protective and promotive measures will be undertaken to ensure their overall protection, well being and development.
Monitoring Mechanism
Monitoring of all existing and new interventions is imperative. One important activity of the Ministry of MinorityAffairs in the 11th Plan will be to ensure that the Minorities get their due share in the developmental schemes of various Ministries and departments at central as well as state level. The Ministry will have to advise the concerned ministries and departments and monitor the implementation of PMs 15 Point Programme. To assist the Ministry, the government will examine the feasibility of a separate committee comprising of government as well as civil society representatives, to undertake a 6 monthly review of all programmes deemed to be targeting Minorities. The idea of setting up a National Resorce Group for Minority affairs. will also be considered. Finally, efforts will be made to establish a Grievance Redressal Cell in the Ministry of minority Affairs as part of monitoring efforts to allow for complaints of non-compliance, interference, and non implementation.
(Source: Eleventh Five Year Plan)

MINORITY UPLIFT
Report of the High Level Expert Committee, 2007 (Summary)
On National Minorities Development & Finance Corporation
As part of efforts to improve the access to capital for the minority communities, the concept of having an additional financing agency for minorities was born in the form of National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC). NMDFC was incorporated under the aegis of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India on the 30th of September 1994 under section 25 of the Companies Act – 1956 with the main objective of promoting economic development of the poorer section of minorities. The prime mandate of NMDFC was to provide concessional finance to the minorities living below double the poverty line for self-employment. The corporation extends loans primarily for self employment as well as educational loans.
The authorized capital of NMDFC is Rs. 650 crores. The shareholding was to be distributed as follows: Government of India – 65%; that of the State Government – 26%; and individuals a share of 9%. The Government of India has already contributed 89% of its share of equity whereas state governments have contributed only 57% of their share. Individuals / Groups have no contribution in the paid up share capital of NMDFC.
NMDFC has two funding channels to reach the ultimate beneficiaries: one through the State Channelising Agencies (SCAs) nominated by State governments and the other through the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Presently, NMDFC has 35 operational SCAs in 25 States and two Union Territories and a network of more than 150 NGOs across the country. Mainly term loans of up to Rs. 5 lakhs and Micro Finance of Rs. 25,000 per beneficiary are provided at concessional rates of interest through SCAs and NGOs respectively. NMDFC has been able to finance more than Rs. 803 crores for about 2087 lakhs beneficiaries under these two channels.
The Term Loan Scheme: NMDFC provides assistance of up to 85% of the project cost for any commercially viable and technically feasible venture, the remaining 15% being contributed by SCAs and the beneficiaries. Loans above Rs. 50,000 amount require clearance from the NMDFC. The objective of the Micro Financing Scheme conducted through NGOs is to reach the poorest among the target group, especially minority women scattered in remote villages and urban slums, who are not able to take advantage of credit form normal banking channels.
Funds Disbursed by NMDFC under Term Loan Scheme
Year Funds disbursed (In Rs Corores)
1994-95 30.03 9,570
1995-96 6.49 4,797
1996-97 44.23 10,749
1997-98 23.41 4,932
1998-99 59.39 14,333
1999-2000 60.77 22,510
2000-2001 72.43 20,274
2001-2002 92.06 21,489
2002-2003 71.03 16,348
2003-2004 82.24 18,184
2004-2005 130.72 35,552
2005-2006 98.10 23,408
Total 770.9 202,146
Term Loan Scheme is the main activity of NMDFC. The yearly disbursement have been stagnant over the past 5 years. The number of beneficiaries added every year has also flattened over the past three years.
Micro Financing
Year Amount Disbursed in Crore
1998-99 0.43 3,281
1999-2000 0.52 7,359
2000-2001 1.00 11,418
2001-2002 4.78 24,529
2002-2003 2.90 7,540
2003-2004 4.42 9,415
2004-2005 8.28 11,034
2005-2006 10.02 10,893
Total 32.36 85,469
Though the amount disbursed is growing it is still very small. The number of beneficiaries is not growing relative to the vast potential in the country especially for minority groups.
Table 5: Community-wise Break-up of Beneficiaries Assisted
Community % of Total Percentage of Population Beneficiaries Assisted
Muslims 72.19 77.0
Christians 12.70 15.0
Sikhs 10.14 7.5
Buddhists 4.19 0.5
Parsis 0.03 0.0
The split of the beneficiaries on the basis of community is more or less satisfactory except in case of Buddhist.
Rate of Interest and Recovery of Loans
NMDFC provides loans to SCAs / NGOs between 1% to 3% per annum for its various welfare schemes whereas 5% to 6% per annum is charged from beneficiaries resulting in a margin of 3% as establishment charges for the SCAs. The recovery of loans is very poor for almost all the SCAs.
While minority communities have benefited form the activities of NMDFC, it should be noted that the total flow of credit form NMDF in comparison to the flows through banking and other financial institutions is extremely small. This limits the impact of NMDFC’s assistance on the economic progress of the minority community. Moreover, obtaining a guarantee from the State government remains the biggest hurdle to getting a loan from NMDFC. Given the poor financial position of State Governments, they are becoming increasingly reluctant to guarantee loans.
In addition the identification of beneficiaries based on recommendations has led to credit flowing to households that are not Double Poverty Line (DBL) households. State Government guarantees are costly for SCAs absorbing about 1.25 to 1.5% of their meager margin.
(Source: Report of the High Level Expert Committee on Working of NMDFC and Recommendations for Improvement, April, 2007)

EMPLOYMENT
Minority Status and Labour Market Outcome
Testing “Minority Enclave” Hypothesis (Extracts)
Dr Maitreyi Bordia Das, The World Bank
Abstract
Building on previous analysis, this paper uses data form the 61st Round of the National Sample Survey to understand the employment outcomes of Dalit and Muslim men. It uses a conceptual framework developed for US labor market that asserts that ethnic minorities skirt discrimination in the primary labor market to build successful self-employed ventures in the form of “ethnic enclaves” or “ethnic Labor market”. The paper uses entry into self employment for educated minority groups as a proxy for “minority enclaves”. The empirical analysis based on multinomial logistic regression find that the “minority enclave hypothesis” does not hold for Dalits but it does overwhelmingly for Muslims. Perhaps quotas in government jobs for Dalits work towards bringing them on par with non-Dalits. But it is not because they have salaried jobs that they do not build minority enclaves, but because they do not have the wherewithal to move into self-employment. Muslim men on the other hand, fit the minority enclave hypothesis very well. Their representation in salaried jobs is very low and seeming “push” out of salaried work emerges through our analysis. So they end up highly likely to be self-employed in non-farm occupations. The interaction of Dalit and of Muslim status with post-primary education in urban areas demonstrates that post-primary education confers almost a disadvantage for minority men: it does not seem to affect their allocation either to salaried work or to non-farm self-employment but does increase their likelihood of opting out of the labor force – and if they cannot afford to , they join the casual labor market. Due to the complexity of these results and the fact that we have no earnings data for self-employment, it is difficult to say whether self-employment is choice or compulsion and whether builders of “minority enclaves” fare better than those in the primary market.
Introduction
We use data from the newly released 61st Round of the National Sample Survey to understand the employment outcomes tow sets of minorities in India – Dalits and Muslims. The first is a caste minority and the second a religious minority, but they are similar in many respects. Almost 18 percent of our sample of working age individuals is Dalit and about 13 percent is Muslim. We ask the question – do minority groups build “enclave labor markets” if they have the requisite wherewithal? The idea of “ethnic enclaves” or “ethnic labor market” was first developed in the US context who maintain that ethnic minorities who enter the US labor market are discriminated against because they are unfamiliar with the language and culture and are obviously distinct from the mainstream. But they do not necessarily enter at a disadvantage if they have the human capital. If they do, they build “ethnic enclaves” of self – employment and do well in these ventures. This paper tries to apply this conceptual model to the Indian context by testing it for two minorities – each historically discriminated against in different ways. Unfortunately, lack of earnings data does not allow us to directly test whether self-employment has higher rewards than regular salaried work and therefore whether these ventures are successful.
On of the major preoccupations of Muslim intellectuals has been the poor representation of Muslims in public service and their disproportionate concentration in self employment. Writing about the poor performance of Muslim candidates in the civil service examination S. Hamid then Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University noted that this “deprives the community of a sense of participation in the governance and management of their country. They are in the process denied a role in the existing adventure of national reconstruction and development”. Thus, the popular nation that Muslims have a cultural premium on self-employment and prefer it to salaried jobs in not borne out in the writings of Muslim schools nor in the growing demand for reservation of jobs for Muslims. There is no doubt however, that the issue of minority status and employment is fraught with political overtones, and few writings have addressed the issue empirically. This paper aims to address that gap through an empirically grounded analysis using national data to understand the relationship between minority status and access to self-employment, and the possible social correlates self – employment.
We conceptualize the labor market not merely as a market as a market in the economic sense but a site where cultural and social relations play out. It is here that the opening quote by Kari Polanyi gains additional relevance. Without labeling the Indian labor market “segmented” or discriminatory” because we do not have tools to test those labels empirically, this paper moves from the assumption that social historical and cultural factors play a major role in the functioning of this market. We ask how minority status – which is more than a numerical construct – it is a social construct – plays out in labor market outcomes.
Dalits & Muslims in Indian Labour Market
Can the concept of “ethinicity” even be applied to Dalits and Muslims? Betielle assesses the application of the term ethnicity to Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims in India and concludes that while there may be differences in the application of the term ethnic in other contexts (such as immigrants with clear – cut physical differences from the majority population and that caste has a clear ritual hierarchy), the term ethnic nonetheless does apply to India for three reasons. First, he views ethnicity as a set of objective differences between population groups. Second, he sees an awareness of these objective differences as key to the definition and third, he views political organization along these lines of difference as the clinching factor in what can be considered ethnicity. On all three counts Dalits and Muslims can be considered “ethnic” groups in India and one can argue for “ethnicity” as a social concept derived from caste and religious status. However, we prefer to use the term “minority” rather than “ethnic group” since in Indian scholarship “ethnicity” is a disputed term and not very widely used.
Perhaps the biggest social similarity among Dalitts and Muslims in that there is an elaborate dominant religious ideology that “excludes” them. Concepts in the Brahmanical ideology that succeed in giving the status of the “other” to these groups play out also in the type of occupations they pursue. While most social groups in India have historically and hierarchically determined occupations, the important similarity among Muslims and Dalits in that they are for the most part landless. For Muslims this has meant concentration in urban areas and for Dalits it has meant either that they either manage to get salaried jobs or become casual laborers. Those Muslims who cannot access the urban labor market, also remain casual laborers. The major difference among the two groups is of course that one has access to job quotas and the other does not.
Key Hypothesis
So the relevant question for us then becomes – what do educated Muslims and educated Dalits do? For Dalits we argue that the existence of reserved jobs in government should take care of some of the supply of educated labor form amongst them. The remainder of the educated persons ought to be in self-employment, since they should have the requisite skills. In the case of Muslims, since they have no quotas in government jobs, they would be more likely to be in self-employment than Dalits are. While we are unable to test if such engagement is better or worse for them than regular salaried work, disproportionate engagement in self-employment nevertheless could be an indication of their lack of options in the “primary or the more covered market.
Results
Muslim status has no significant association with labor force participation for men (but it has huge effects for women) in either urban or rural areas. Land is not merely an economic asset but also a maker of status and influences a number of outcomes. Here too we find that owning land is associated not only with greater likelihood of labor force participation but also the likelihood of being in non-farm ventures.
Where the question of self-employment is concerned the results from urban areas are more relevant than for rural areas. In the latter, farming is still the major basis for employment and the non-farm sector is in its infancy.
Most insightful are the interaction effects between education level and Muslim status.
Being Muslim has large and significant positive effects for participation in self-employment in general but in urban areas, there are almost equally large but negative effects for being in regular salaried jobs. So, being Muslim in a city or town makes men 12 percent more likely to be self-employed and commensurately or 14 percent less likely to have a salaried job. In rural areas, Muslims are not landowners and so being Muslim makes men 8 percent less likely to be self-employed in farming. The really vivid results are for the multiplied effects of Muslim and post-primary education. We would have expected that if they built “enclave labor markets” from choice, that the more educated ones would have expected that if they built “enclave labor markets” from choice, that the more educated ones would be more likely to be self- employed, at least in urban areas. This is not borne out from NSS data. Post primary education does not increase the likelihood of Muslim men to be self-employed. On the contrary, when compared to salaried work, post-primary educated Muslim men become more likely to engage in casual labor or stay out of the labor force. So, Muslim men too stay out of the labor market if they can afford to, and if they absolutely cannot, perhaps they join casual labor. The “education penalty”: also seems to be higher for Muslim men than for Dalit men.
The minority enclaves hypothesis rests on the assumption that those who are excluded from or disadvantaged in formal employment (or the primary labor market), will set up alternative “enclaves” or minority labor market” based on (non-farm) self-employment. In India, when we say formal employment we mean teachers, clerks security personnel and office attendants, mostly in the public sector – jobs that come with security, pension and several important perquisites that confer a social status especially in rural areas but also in small towns and cities. While non-farm self-employed occupations are not necessarily high status and are highly heterogeneous, they are nonetheless the next best alternative to formal jobs. Hold overwhelmingly for Muslims.
Muslim men fit the minority enclave hypothesis very well. They do not regular salaried jobs and the “push” out of salaried work emerges clearly in our analysis, although some may argue that this is not a “push” out of salaried jobs but a “pull” into self-employment. So they end up highly likely to be self-employed in non-farm occupations. These effects are much more pronounced in urban areas, in spite of the fact that there are more salaried jobs. An earlier analysis indicates that half of all Muslim men are traders, merchants and shopkeepers and the other half are in a range of petty occupations such as tailoring, weaving dyeing, transport, and in building activity as carpenters and masons. These occupations require them to have built networks over a period of time that guarantee them markets, access to raw materials and capital. Muslims also live and operate their businesses in geographical clusters within cities and towns with a substantial Muslim population also have geographical enclaves.
For Muslims minority enclaves are a reality – one that plays out more intensely in urban areas due perhaps to the structure of opportunities and the absence of farm related work.
Low education among Muslims is often used to explain why they fare badly in formal employment. Post-primary education confers almost a disadvantage: it does not seem to affect their allocation either to salaried work or to non-farm self employment but does to increase their likelihood of opting out of the labor force and if they cannot afford to, they join the casual labor market. We have no earnings data for self-employment that is difficult to say whether self-employment is choice or compulsion.
Conclusion
The results of this study bring out some important issues for the employment outcomes of minorities in particular and the Indian labor market as a whole. First, while reserved quotas temper the disadvantage in formal jobs for Dalit men, there are not enough of these jobs to keep even educated men out of casual labor. The effect of poverty and perhaps lack of networks and other “entrepreneurial wherewithal” is felt most strongly by Dalits who cannot enter self-employment due to a variety of social and economic reasons. For Muslims, the lack of options in regular salaried jobs appears to push them to build minority enclaves. Second, in the absence of acceptable employment opportunities, educated minority men would rather opt out of the labor force if they can afford to; or else, undertake low status employment. The returns to education in the form of entry into preferred employment-regular salaried jobs are lower for these groups compared to “caste Hindus”.
We venture a final word on whether “minority enclave” are good or bad. For Muslims it appears that the “push” out of salaried jobs combined with lack of access to land in rural areas has historically necessitated that they set up enclaves – it is likely that this employment strategy is a positive one; but in social terms, if enclave labor markets come into being due to a “push”, they are likely to have negative externalities in other areas. What is puzzling for Muslims is that education is not associated with either salaried work or with non-farm self-employment, but rather with casual work or with being out of the labor force. This seems to indicate that the returns to education for Muslims are low in the form of entry into coveted jobs. In that case, can the enclave labor markets they build be a entirely positive? We cannot say for sure, but we may be seeing discrimination in the labor market for educated Muslim men, in much the same ay as we see for Dalit men.
Thus, the builders of “minority enclaves” in India are predominantly Muslims and they seem to act in much the same way as ethnic minorities in other countries do.
(Paper presented at National Conference on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies, organised by Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi, 26-27 October, 2007)
Jean Drèze
Universalisation of Employment Guarantee from April 2008
Unprecedented Challenge & opportunity To build foundations of a social security system in rural areas, revive village economies, promote social equity, and empower rural labour.
Ever since its enactment in mid-2005, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been a target of relentless attacks in the corporate-sponsored media. Numerous business columnists, most of whom have never seen an NREGA worksite (except perhaps from an airplane), have gone out of their way to rubbish this programme. “Expensive gravy train”, “money guzzler”, “costly joke” and “wonky idea” are the colourful terms th ey have used to describe it.
It would be surprising if this had nothing to do with the “subversive” character of the NREGA. Indeed, the Act runs counter to the current reorientation of economic policy and state intervention in favour of corporate interests, misleadingly known as “market-oriented reforms.” As one commentator recently put it, the NREGA is a prime case of “meddling in markets” (Business Standard, March 13, 2007). It is another matter that the state freely “meddles with markets” when it suits business interests, whether it is by forcibly acquiring land on their behalf, or by creating special economic zones, or by defending the so-called “intellectual property rights.” The difference is that the NREGA empowers the working class — there lies the danger.
I am not dismissing every critique of the NREGA as an act of propaganda. The Act has some major flaws, and there is much scope for reasoned critiques of it as well as for searching assessments of its implementation on the ground. What is striking, however, is that informed critiques of the Act have been few and far between. Instead, a plethora of shallow arguments have been invoked to deride it.
By way of illustration, prominent media attention was given a few months ago to a so-called “study by the India Development Foundation,” allegedly showing that the NREGA caused inflation. I leave it to the reader to guess why this particular item of government expenditure was singled out as being responsible for inflation, as opposed to, say, the defence budget, which is almost 10 times as expensive. Further enquiry revealed that this “study” did not exist; it was just a speculative remark made at a panel discussion by a member of this Foundation. Nevertheless, this hot air was promptly pumped into the propaganda balloon.
To put things in perspective, there has also been much “pro-NREGA” propaganda, mainly from the government. Government propaganda, however, is relatively innocuous since the public knows that official claims have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Corporate propaganda is more subtle, and thus more insidious.

CAG report
The latest wave of anti-NREGA propaganda in the mainstream media focussed on a draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). This report was highlighted in two successive front-page articles published in one of India’s leading dailies, with headlines such as: “It’s Official: In Poorest States, Job Funds Don’t Reach the Poor.” This statement, gives a very misleading picture of the CAG report. Indeed, the report does not present any evidence of massive leakages in the NREGA, nor was this the objective of the investigation. The main focus of the report is on the conformity of the programme with the provisions of the Act as well as with the operational guidelines. The report points out, quite rightly, that the guidelines are routinely violated. This applies, in particular, to the transparency safeguards, making the programme vulnerable to leakages.
A large proportion of these funds does reach, and makes a big difference to the lives of, the rural poor. This crucial point should not be lost in the din of arguments for and against the NREGA. Further, recent studies clearly show that it is possible to enforce the transparency safeguards, and that this can go a long way in preventing corruption. This view is fully consistent with the CAG’s analysis.
The key message of the draft CAG report is a constructive one, summed up in the concluding paragraph: “The MoRD needs to ensure that State governments take swift and immediate action to remedy these deficiencies and improve their administrative and technical infrastructure…, so that the forthcoming expansion of NREGA to cover all rural districts in the country can be successfully implemented.” The report presents useful recommendations on how to strengthen the required support structures, relating for instance to staff appointments, record-keeping and financial management.
The Central government would do well to heed this constructive message. The extension of the NREGA to the whole country, from April, 2008 is one of the biggest organisational challenges government has ever faced. It is also an unprecedented opportunity to build the foundations of a social security system in rural India, revive village economies, promote social equity, and empower rural labourers. As things stand, however, this bold initiative looks like a political stunt, shorn of the far-reaching preparations that are required to make it a success. In this context that the draft CAG report needs to be treated as a useful wake-up call,.
(The author is Visiting Professor at Allahabad University and a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council.)
(Source: The Hindu)

URDU
Sachar Report on Urdu in School (Extract)
Educational Attainment and the Issue of Language
The non-availability of education in the Urdu language is seen by some as one of the reasons for the low educational status of Muslims in India..
9.1 The Context
The advantage of providing education (especially primary education) in the mother tongue is undisputed as it enables the child to understand and apply skills more easily. It was for this reason that the three language formula was adopted in the early 1960’s. As per Article 350A of the Indian Constitution, “It shall be the endeavour of every state and of every local authority within the state to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups; and the President may issue such directions to any state as he considers necessary or proper for securing the provision of such facilities”.30However, despite the general agreement on the merit of this proposal, there has been more violation than adherence to it.
9.2 Urdu Medium Schools
Despite the positive recommendations of different Committees, in many states, there is a dearth of facilities for teaching Urdu. The number of Urdu medium schools is very low in most States. In contradiction to the widely held belief, the Urdu-speaking population is not merely confined to the Indo-Gangetic plains. Urdu is also reported to be the mother tongue of a sizeable section of the populations of Karnataka (10%), Maharashtra (7.5%) and Andhra Pradesh (8.5%). Interestingly, in all these states, the percentage of Muslim population reoporting Urdu as their mother tongue is substantially higher than the states in the Hindi-Urdu belt. In these states, the percentage of children enrolled in Urdu medium as a percentage of Muslim children in the school going age (6-14 years) is quite high. All children going to urdu medium shcools are Muslim. Surprisingly, the figures for enrollment in Urdu medium in Uttar Pradesh, in particular, is dismally low. It remains unsatisfactory in Bihar and Jharkhand too. Is it that Urdu is not considered as an option for Muslim children in Uttar Pradesh and other Northern states while it is preferred in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh?
The enrollment figures in Urdu medium seen in conjunction with the availability seem to suggest that lower enrollment in Urdu-medium schools is due to limited availability of such schools in a given state. As per the figures provided by the National Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities (NCLM) the three states of Karnataka (4410), Maharashtra (3443) and Andhra Pradesh (2569) have a large The Muslims in Karnataka, especially those living in its southern part, speak Urdu and prefer to get primary education in Urdu medium schools. The State of Karnataka has made provision for such education across Karnataka, even in its northern parts if there is a demand for Urdu education.
According to the 2001 Census there are 6.5 million Muslims in Karnataka comprising 12% of the population, and Muslim children aged 6-14 years were about 0.2 million in 2004, comprising 14% of all children in this age group. About 70% of Muslim children report Urdu as their mother tongue indicating that Urdu is an important medium of instruction in Karnataka schools.
Data from the Department of Education in Karnataka reveals that a large proportion (77%) of institutions that impart primary level education in a minority languages are of Urdu medium. While this proportion falls for high schools, it is still significantly high. The availability of a large number of Urdu-medium schools allows most Urduspeaking children to be educated in their mother tongue; over 70% of Urdu- number of government or government aided Urdu medium schools where a considerable proportion of Urdu speaking children are enrolled. This is primarily responsible for boosting up their enrollment figures in Urdu-medium32.
Non-Urdu medium schools with a provision for teaching Urdu as an elective subject are few and far between. This contrasts sharply with the importance attached to, say, Sanskrit, which is offered in a majority of the schools. “The Hindi speaking States operate largely with Hindi, English and Sanskrit whereas the non- Hindi speaking States have largely operated with a two language formula” with some exceptions(NCERT, 2005). The importance given to Sanskrit in the educational framework in Delhi and many north Indian States has tended to sideline minority languages. Students have to opt for Sanskrit as there is no provision to teach Urdu (or any other regional language) in many schools. This, in effect, makes Sanskrit a compulsory subject. Not surprisingly, the performance of Urdu medium students is very poor. This creates a vicious circle where the lack of facilities for learning in Urdu leads to poor results. This in turn reduces the functional worth of Urdu, lowers the demand for learning in Urdu, and offers an excuse for downgrading facilities for teaching Urdu33. The Committee recognizes that the Government’s objective is to improve the educational status of Muslim children, rather than increase the number of Urdu-medium schools, per se. However, in view of the large proportion of Muslim children with Urdu as their mother tongue, the Committee feels steps should be taken to ensure that Urdu is taught, at least as an elective subject, in areas which have a substantial presence of Urdu speaking population. The Karnataka experience speaking children are enrolled in Urdu-medium primary schools; while this proportion is lower for high schools, it is still significantly high at 60%. Interestingly, a greater proportion of girls are enrolled in Urdu-medium schools. A consideration of the staffing pattern also reflects the adequacy of the Urdumedium schools tosatisfy the demand for education in Urdu. Number of government or government aided Urdu medium schools where a considerable proportion of Urdu speaking children are enrolled. This is primarily responsible for boosting up their enrollment figures in Urdu-medium32.
Non-Urdu medium schools with a provision for teaching Urdu as an elective subject are few and far between. This contrasts sharply with the importance attached to, say, Sanskrit, which is offered in a majority of the schools. “The Hindi speaking States operate largely with Hindi, English and Sanskrit whereas the non- Hindi speaking States have largely operated with a two language formula” with some exceptions(NCERT, 2005). The importance given to Sanskrit in the educational framework in Delhi and many north Indian States has tended to sideline minority languages. Students have to opt for Sanskrit as there is no provision to teach Urdu (or any other regional language) in many schools. This, in effect, makes Sanskrit a compulsory subject.
Not surprisingly, the performance of Urdu medium students is very poor. This creates a vicious circle where the lack of facilities for learning in Urdu leads to poor results. This in turn reduces the functional worth of Urdu, lowers the demand for learning in Urdu, and offers an excuse for downgrading facilities for teaching Urdu. The Committee recognizes that the Government’s objective is to improve the educational status of Muslim children, rather than increase the number of Urdu-medium schools, per se. However, in view of the large proportion of Muslim children with Urdu as their mother tongue, the Committee feels steps should be taken to ensure that Urdu is taught, at least as an elective subject, in areas which have a substantial presence of Urdu speaking population. The Karnataka experience speaking children are enrolled in Urdu-medium primary schools; while this proportion is lower for high schools, it is still significantly high at 60%. Interestingly, a greater proportion of girls are enrolled in Urdu-medium schools. A consideration of the staffing pattern also reflects the adequacy of the Urdumedium schools to satisfy the demand for education in Urdu.
Not only is the number of teachers in Urdu-medium schools high, but their gender break up corresponds to the gender structure of the Urdu-medium nstudents.31 This is an important aspect as literature has documented the preference for Muslim parents to send their daughters to schools staffed by women teachers. Even in high schools about 50% teachers are women. Further, there are even Teachers Training Schools at the D.Ed. (Diploma in Education) level in Urdu. Candidates who have passed PUC can apply for this course. After qualifying, they are eligible to teach in lower primary schools. provides an alternative where continuation in the Urdu medium is possible till the higher secondary level (Box 4.2), but not up to the graduate level. While the provision of primary schooling in Urdu and availability of Urdu as an elective seem an appropriate demand, the question of Urdu medium schooling at the higher level needs to be assessed carefully.
(Source: Sachar Committee Report, November, 2006)

EDUCATION
Sachar Report on Madrasa Education
Choice of Educational Institutions: The Case of Madrasas
The type of educational institution in which children study is also an important marker of educational status. This is because the quality and cost of education varies in different types of schools. Both Muslim and ‘Other’ children mostly attend the inexpensive Government or Governmentaided schools; about one third attend private schools. Many of the government - aided schools may effectively be privately run; an analysis of the proportion of children going to government versus government-aided schools would be instructive. A small proportion (4%) of Muslim children also attend Madarsas
It is often believed that a large proportion of Muslim children study in Madarsas, mostly to get acquainted with the religious discourse and ensure the continuation of Islamic culture and social life. A persistent belief nurtured, in the absence of statistical data and evidence, is that Muslim parents have a preference for religious education leading to dependence on Madarsas.24 It is also argued that education in Madarsas often encourages religious fundamentalism and creates a sense of alienation from the mainstream. In actuality the number of Madarsa attending students is much less than commonly believed Appendix
NCAER figures indicate that only about 4 % of all Muslim students of the school going age group are enrolled in Madarsas. At the all-India level this works out to be about 3% of all Muslim children of school going age. The importance of Madarsas as a source of education is not high in any of the regions, except the Northern one. But even here, according to the higher NCAER estimate, less than 7 % children of the school going age group attend Madarsas.
One reason for the misconception that the majority of Muslim children are enrolled in Madarsas is that people do not distinguish between Madarsas and Maktabs. While Madarsas provide education (religious and/or regular),26 Maktabs are neighbourhood schools, often attached to mosques, that provide religious education to children who attend other schools to get ‘mainstream’ education. Thus Maktabs provide part-time religious education and are complementary to the formal educational institutions.
When modernization of Madarsas is planned, policy makers should be careful to distinguish between these two types of institutions. The Maktabs and residential Madarsas are necessarily traditional and meant only for religious education, because their social function is to carry on the Islamic tradition. On the other hand, it is the constitutional obligation (under Article 21A) of the Government to provide education to the masses. The solution in such cases is not only to modernize Madarsas, but also to provide good quality, subsidised ‘mainstream’ education and create an adequate infrastructure for education. Therefore, the state must also fulfill its obligation to provide affordable high quality school education to the masses through the formal education system.
Apart from the role Madarsas have played in providing religious education one needs to recognize their contribution towards the education of Muslims in the country. Very often one finds that Madarsas have indeed provided schooling to Muslim children where the State has failed them. Many children go to Madarsas and thereby acquire some level of literacy/education when there is no school in the neighbourhood. This effort needs to be recognized. This could be done by establishing ‘equivalence’ to Madarsa certificates for subsequent admission into government schools and universities. For this purpose, equivalence between the two systems of education will need to be established at different levels. Many Madarsas provide education that is similar to that provided in ‘mainstream’ schools. This needs to be understood in a transparent manner. Many Madarsas have shown an interest in the modernization scheme of the government and are keen to incorporate science, mathematics and other ‘modern/regular’ subjects in their curriculum and introduce modern methods of pedagogy. However, given the small number of children attending these institutions the ‘modernization scheme’ cannot be a substitute for mainstream education.
Moreover, in the case of the implementation of the Scheme for Modernisation of Madarsas a number of deficiencies. The number and quality of teachers assigned to Madarsas for teaching modern subjects and their remuneration were inadequate. Besides, the important aspect of finding space for modern subjects in the Madarsa curriculum appears to have been ignored. The modern stream remained un-supervised at the Madarsa level and un-inspected at the state level.
It is also important to recognize that Madarsas although primarily and usuallyintended for producing human resources for manning the mosques and the Madarsas themselves are also expected to produce Ulema who are looked upon by Muslims for guiding them in matters of importance in daily life and in social and political discourse.

National Commission for Minority Educational Institution
Annual Report for 2005-2006 (Summary)
Proposed Amendment to NCMIE Act
Introduction
The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) was established, to begin with, through the promulgation of an Ordinance. The Department of Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of HRD, Government of India, notified the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Ordinance 2004 (No. 6 of 2004) on 11th November, 2004. Thereafter, on 16th November, 2004 the Ministry of HRD issued the notification constituting the Commission, with its head quarters in Delhi. On 26th November, 2004 the Government issued the notification appointing Justice M.S.A. Siddiqui as the Chairperson and Shri B.S. Ramoowalia and Shri Valson Thampu as Members of the Commission, to hold office for a period of five years w.e.f. the date they assume charge.
I-Section 2 (g) reads as under :-
“Minority Educational Institution” means a college or institution (other than a “Minority Educational University) established or maintained by a person or group of persons from amongst the minorities.
In the light of the above it is proposed that the words “ other than a University” be deleted from the definition of a minority educational Institution in Section 2 (g) of the NCMEI Act.
II-Section 10A
One of the most significant and proactive features of the NCMEI Act of 2004 was the formal and explicit affirmation it contained of the right to affiliate as an integral and essential facet of the educational rights encapsulated in Article 30 (1).
10 A. Right of a minority Educational Institution to seek affiliation.
A Minority Educational Institution may seek affiliation to any University of its choice subject to such affiliation being permissible within the Act under which the said University is established.
10. A. Right of a Minority Educational Institution to seek affiliation.
Minority Educational Institution may seek affiliation to any University of its choice subject to such affiliation being permissible, irrespective of the territorial jurisdiction conferred on it by the Act under which the said University is established.
III- Section 12 B (4) and 10 (1) of NCMEI Act.
Section 12 B of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act, 2004 provides right of appeal against the order of rejection of the application for grant of minority status certificate to a minority educational Institution. Sub-section (4) lays down the procedure for disposal of the appeal filed before the Commission. Sub-section (4) is as under:-
“(4) On receipt of the appeal under sub-section (3), the Commission may, after giving the parties to the appeal an opportunity of being heard, and in consultation with the State Government, decide on the minority status of the Educational Institution and shall proceed to give such directions as it may deem fit and, all such directions shall be binding on the parties”.
Since the expression “and in consultation with the State Government” completely destroys the right of appeal created in favour of the aggrieved party, it would be appropriate to delete this expression, i.e., “and in consultation with the State
Government” by proposing suitable amendment in Sub-section (4) of Section 12 B of th NCMEI Act.
Similarly , Sub-section (1) of Section 10 of the NCMEI Act also requires slight amendment. Sub-section (1) of Section 10 is as under:-
“(1) Any person who desires to establish a Minority Educational Institution may apply to the Competent authority for the grant of no objection certificate for the said purpose.”
A bare reading of this provision gives an impression that ‘No Objection Certificate’ is required for establishment of a Minority Educational Institution in all cases.
Therefore it is proposed that the following expression may be added before the words “any person” employed in Sub-section (1) of Section 10:-
“Subject to such law, as may be made by the appropriate Government”,
Other Proposals
*The norms for deciding and according minority status vary from state to state. It needs to be highlighted that section 2(g) of the NCMEI act defines a Minority educational institution as:
“ Minority Educational Educational Institution” means a college or institution (other than a University) established or maintained by a person or group of person from amongst the minorities,”
The definition is in harmonious consonance with the letter and spirit of Article 30 (1). Since the NCMEI Act is a central Act, it prevails over all state legislation, ordinances, rules and regulations.
Under Article 254 of the Constitution, if the State formulates regulations prescribing criteria for granting Minority Status of an educational institution and if it is repugnant to the provisions of Section 2 (g) of the NCMEI Act, then such a rule / regulation shall be void to the extent of repugnancy. It is, therefore, necessary that States be advised suitably in order to amend all conflicting regulations as highlighted above.
*The requirements prescribed for granting minority status in several states are such that in effect minority status could be denied to deserving institutions. These prescriptions assume diverse colours and contours. The State should be required to revise these rules so as to ensure that no deserving institution is denied its rightful status and the protection that goes with it. Prescribing a fixed, and often impracticably high, percentage of in-take from the minority community concerned, as States increasingly tend to, is unrealistic tend to, is unrealistic and disabling. What is reasonable is to require that educational institutions aspiring to minority status should preferentially admit all eligible applicants from the minority community subject to availability of seats.
It has been brought to the notice of the Commission that State government are increasingly withdrawing from the duty to facilitate education through grant-in-aid. Faculty positions that enjoy grant in aid are abolished as incumbents retire. The withdrawal of state subsidy in this manner can cause Minority Educational Institutions located in rural and tribal areas as well as among poorer segments of the community to collapse. Such institutions need to be supported and strengthened, rather than disabled, especially in the light of the Constitutional mandate to provide free, universal education for all children in the education to the status of a fundamental right. It is a well-known fact that the minorities are not financially strong to establish or maintain educational institutions on their own. They need financial help and encouragement from the Government in this regard.
* A major problem faced by minority educational institutions is the dearth o qualified teachers. In various States the Governments/Universities have formulated rules/ regulations/ ordinances which impinge on, and gradually annihilate, the minority character of educational institutions. Foremost among them is the tendency to disallow teacher training colleges.
* National Regulatory authorities in education, like the U.G.C., A.I.C.T.E., N.C.T.E., M.C.I., D.C.I., C.B.S.E., etc. should be instructed to amend their rules and regulations to bring them into consonance with the law declared by the Supreme Court. The idea of creating a monitoring cell as part of the HRD Ministry specifically mandated to keep vigil against the whittling down of minority rights through executive and bureaucratic formulations and prescription is worth considering. It is imperative that the Central Government advise the State Government and Central regulatory authorities to amend their statutes and rules to bring them into conformity with the directions in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation Verdict of the Apex Court. There is a need to sensitize the officers and instrumentalities of the State concerning the various pronouncements of the Supreme Court in respect of minority rights. In the course of the work of the Commission. In view of the patterns of rights violations, it appears that the level of awareness in this regard is rather low and inadequate.
* It has been brought to the notice of the Commission that there are thousands of unauthorized schools imparting primary education in various States, in the absence of accessible and affordable facilities for those who are, therefore, compelled to resort to these schools. Forcing the closure of these institutions or breaking their resolve to survive through financially crippling penalization robs the children of the poor of the only hope of securing minimal education which flies in the face of the revolutionary incorporation of the right to education as a fundamental right through Article 21A of the Constitution. There is a need to temper legality with social justice in such situation. To that end it is suggested that State Governments be required to undertake a comprehensive survey of these allegedly “unauthorized” schools and initiative procedure for their regularization, ensuring that the required facilities are put in place to ensure quality education. It would be necessary to create a Central Fund out of which such institutions are given a one-time grant for their upgradation and standardization.
* There prevails an unequal situation, as of now, in respect of litigation vis-à-vis minority rights. The authorities [universities, departments of education, etc.] fight the cases with the tax payers’ money; whereas affected and aggrieved minority educational institutions have to dig into their scarce resources. In a vast majority of cases, institutions without adequate means are left with the sole and lamentable option to suffer in silence. This inequality of resources needs to be addressed. Equality of opportunity is of the essence of justice. As of now, the availability of justice to minority educational institutions is seriously vitiated by inequality of resources as outlined above. The Commission would suggest, in order to minimize this inequality, that grievance cells be set up in the Education Departments of various States.
* Complaints have been received from various States that the Governments concerned are nudging minority and private non-minority educational institution out of the grant-in-aid scheme. The State governments seek to justify this on the alibi of paucity of funds. What underlies this development is a negative attitude to non-governmental initiatives in education. While it is true that the right to receive grant in aid is not a Constitutional imperative, it is also true that the minorities have a right to a share of the educational subsidy as they also pay taxes as well as educational cess, like everyone else. The assumption, therefore , that only Government schools are entitled to grant in aid and that minority schools can be discriminated, in comparison with them, in the matter of grant in aid is unsustainable and unjust. If minority schools are indirectly forced to close by withdrawing grant, he State Governments will have to set up schools to take their place, which is next to impossible. Withdrawing educational subsidy from minority educational institutions must be deemed, in this light, as a self-defeating and unwise step. The State needs to encourage and empower minority NGOs with proven track record in providing educational to set up more institutions. Since education is in the concurrent list, it is appropriate to share the financial implications of this equitably between the Central and State Governments. The Commission wishes to recommend that suitable scheme for minority empowerment in providing education be evolved expeditiously.
(Source: NCMEI Annual Report, 2005-06)



COMMUNALISM
Report on USA Hindu Student Council and its Hindutva Links
Executive Summary
The Hindu Students Council (HSC) is a national network of university-based organizations in the United States that purports to teach about Hindu heritage and culture. On several distinct occasions the National Office of the HSC (located in Houston, USA) has asserted that the HSC is not connected to any political movement and that it is independent of the Sangh Parivar. The UNMISTAKABLY SANGH report, however, establishes that, despite such denials, the HSC continues to be a Sangh project from its inception in 1990 into the present. In fact, the HSC remains an integral component of the Sangh Parivar’s globalizing overseas operations including as a grooming space for future Sangh workers. This report provides the first comprehensive documentation of the origins, methods and practices of the HSC. Unfortunately, many local HSC chapters and their membership may be completely unaware of the political and ideological connections between the HSC and the Sangh and continue to participate in the HSCs activities. The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) started the Truth Out on HSCs!1 Campaign last year in order to engage in a productive dialogue with local HSC chapters. Over the last several months this engagement has provided the public with a large body of evidence revealing the connections between the National HSC to the Sangh Parivar. This report is a consolidation of this evidence, along with some new evidence that we have uncovered most recently.
The HSC was founded in 1990 as a project of the VHP of America. In 1993, Ashok Singhal, the then General Secretary of the VHP declared that “Now, the first project we have in mind is strengthening the Hindu Student Council”.2 Although the National HSC now claims that the HSC “has been independently run since 1993”,3 our report documents continuous and consistent affiliations between the HSC and the Sangh into the present. In sum, this report provides detailed and well-documented evidence of the continued affiliation of the national HSC with the Sangh, Yet, in spite of this clear evidence, the national HSC continues to deny its connections with the Sangh Parivar.
While the national HSC performed an essential service for the Sangh Parivar in developing the Sangh’s electronic infrastructure, its contribution to these organizations was considerably more than creating websites for the RSS and its affiliates. Moreover, the HSC’s Freedom Festival and Dharma Conference along with other such events represent a way for Sangh ideologues to propogate their message under the cover of multiculturalism.The evidence reveals an undeniable and close alliance between the National HSC and the global Sangh.
(Compaign to Stop Funding Hate 17362 Boston Road, Hayward, CA 94541-email: hsctruthout@gmail.com)

On Communalism of the Middle Class
Pavan K. Varma to Humra Quraishi
The calamity facing this country is that the privileged lot are insensitive to the plight of those below them in the economic strata. The first floor of a building can stand only if the foundation is strong.
Communalisation of the middle class peaked after the Babri Masjid demolition. Communal feelings have not been eradicated, but most among the middle class want to move towards the secular mainstream. Communal strife, and the dislocation it causes, disrupts the middle class’s main agenda of upward mobility.
Nationalism have been twisted to suit political interests in recent years? but this is a game with diminishing returns for the manipulators.
The political class and the administrative strata are part of the middle class. The simple truth is that idealism died after 1947, and nothing has really taken its place except self-interest.
There is a need for a new breed of people in public life, and more among the middle class must take the plunge for this.
Real issues cannot be kept permanently under the carpet because the so-called underdogs vote in greater numbers than those from the middle class. If it wasn’t for democracy, the privileged would have long before carved out a republic of their own.
Education, exposure and self-interest-there is no ultimate formula for the middle class to broaden its vision, but these factors could make a difference.
Education, equitable economic growth, strengthening of the democratic process and affirmative action well implemented-these are some things that could help to contain the simmering anger among the under-privileged and the minority groups, who, too, are part of the Indian middle class?
(Source: The Week, January 13, 2008)

GUJARAT GENOCIDE
Message of Bikis Bano Case: Justice is Possible even Against State Govt. & Police
Editorials in National Press, 23 January, 2008 (Extracts)
I- The Hindustan Times,
Well Begun, not Half Done
A special court in Mumbai, where the Supreme Court transferred the Bikis Bano case in 2004, on Monday sentenced 11 accused to life on one count of gangraping Bilkis and another of murdering eight members of her family. The 12th accused, a constable, was given three-year term for shielding the guilty. Many of us would think that this was a fit case for capital punishment. Then what stopped the court from not doing so? According to Judge U.D. Salvi, the case did not qualify as the ‘rarest of rare cases’ because the incident was part of the “tension and violence” that prevailed in the state around that time.
Though the judgment is definitely welcome and would go a long way in restoring the faith of the minority community in the State and the judicial system, there’s no denying the fact that it was Bilkis Bano’s grit and the dogged support of her husband that helped bring the guilty to book. Central Bureau of Investigation Director Vijay Shankar, when he said that it was the “exemplary courage and the exceptional will of Bilkis Bano herself which paved the way for success in the case”. There are many more Gujarat riot-related cases that await justice. By the Gujarat police’s own admission, nearly 1,600 cases relating to the 2002 riots are to be reinvestigated, following a Supreme Court order in 2004 to review more than 2,000 closed cases. But such an order will not normalise the situation unless and until the state government proactively tries to reach out to the affected people and ensure an atmosphere when cases could be heard in the state itself. Unfortunately, till now there has been no effort to do so. Is it politics or a lack of desire to get things back on the rails? Either way, many victims still have a long wait ahead.

II- The Times of India,
Accountability, At Last
The verdict is a lesson in accountability. The court sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment and a policeman to three years in prison on charges including gangraped of and murder of 14 members of her family, including four women and six children.The case was shifted out of Gujarat after a directive from the Supreme Court on a plea filed by Bilkis. The sentence gives hope for scores of victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots that perpetrators of violence may not escape punishment. It is a reminder to rioters everywhere that the wheels of justice could catch up. There are scores of similar cases waiting trial across the country. The Bilkis case should set the tone for prompt and just disposal of these cases. However, the time taken to dispose of a case is as important as the manner of investigation and trial.. The Bilkis case is more of an exception. Few riot cases reach logical conclusion. Botched-up investigations and delayed trials make a travesty of justice. The accused may simply rot in jail only to be cleared of their charges and the victims are left to grieve their losses. The apex court should now expedite trial in all the cases, they are grim reminders of fragile, unstable institutions. They don’t help show the good side of the country’s face.

II- The Hindu,
Beyond the Bilkis Bano Case
This landmark judgment, was preceded by a series of Machiavellian attempts to subvert justice by lending a friendly hand to the accused. In response to a petition from Bano — who maintained that the Gujarat police were hand in glove with the accused, that evidence was being tampered with, and that witnesses were being threatened — the apex court transferred the case from Gujarat to Maharashtra. But it was not such judicial intervention alone that saved the case from collapse. Bano, also pursued the case doggedly and with great determination, refusing to be cowed down by threats or tempted by inducements. The remarkable courage of this young woman sends a powerful message to the victims of other riot cases — namely, that justice is possible even when one is up against a State government that is hell-bent on circumventing it.
Like the Best Bakery massacre, the Bilkis Bano case became a symbol of the communal carnage in the State. It is important to remember that this is but one of the several hundreds of pending cases relating to the Gujarat riots. Six years have passed. It is a matter of conjecture how many more will elapse before the other Gujarat riot victims receive justice. Consider the fate of the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots or those who suffered in the Mumbai riots in 1993. The question must also be seen against the backdrop of the attitude of the Gujarat government, which had closed more than 1,600 riot cases — these were reopened in 2004. The real challenge for the criminal justice system lies in how it deals with the remaining Gujarat riot cases.
Azizan – A brave Muslim Woman Fighter in 1857
Azizan, the famous courtesan of Kanpur was freedom fighter, born in Lucknow in 1832. When Nana Sahib called Hindus and Muslims to unite for the cause of freedom and join him, she joined and organized a battalion of women. Nana Chand says, in his diary, “armed Azizan is flashing everywhere like lightning; often she stands in the streets giving milk and sweetmeats to tired and wounded Sepoys” and preferred martyrdom.

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE
Criminal intent: Marad Riots
Twice in the past four years, first in 2002 and then again in 2003, violent clashes in Marad, a coastal town off Kozhikode in north Kerala, not only took a toll on lives but deepened communal polarisation. On January 3, 2002, communal clashes between Hindu and Muslim extremists started in the afternoon and by the next morning there were five dead and several injured. Two of those killed were Hindus while three were Muslims.
On May 2, 2003, a calculated one-sided attack by Muslim extremists who came armed with lethal weapons left nine dead and scores of severely injured men and women on Marad beach. Eight of those killed in cold blood were Hindus.
On the night of the attack, police arrested more than 50 people involved in the crime, some of whom were hiding in the local Juma Masjid after the carnage. A large number of weapons and explosives were also found at the mosque soon after the killings.
Fearing reprisals after the Muslim attack, more than 2,000 Muslim women and children fled Marad beach on May 3, 2003, leaving all their belongings at home, to take refuge at the three relief camps set up in the neighbouring areas.
For six months, the AK Antony government in Kerala faced the critical problem of rehabilitation of these refugees as some Hindu organisations, who had taken control of Marad beach resisted residents’ attempts to go back to their homes. The Hindu organisations, led by the VHP and locally spearheaded by the Araya Samajam, a caste organisation of Hindu fishermen, physically stopped all efforts at rehabilitation, demanding that the government order a CBI inquiry into the alleged larger conspiracy behind the attack.
Ultimately, the state government ordered a judicial inquiry into the communal violence in Marad after the CPI (M)-led opposition.
Now, more than three years later, the judicial report charges political parties with precipitating a minor incident into a major communal issue. Headed by Justice Thomas P. Joseph, the commission’s report was tabled in the Kerala assembly on September 27.
While stating that there was not enough evidence to suggest any direct international involvement in the incident of May 2, 2003, the Joseph Commission recommends a multi-agency probe to investigate the larger conspiracy at work in the planning and execution of the massacre.
The report is particularly critical of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a coalition partner of the Congress-led United Democratic Front government which ruled the state in 2003, holding that some IUML leaders were aware of the conspiracy behind the attack and that activists of the National Development Front (NDF), a local Muslim organisation, as well as some IUML activists were actively involved in its planning and execution.
However, the IUML is not the only party that the Marad commission report indicts. The report also accuses local leaders of the CPI (M), IUML, BJP and RSS of deliberately exploiting a minor altercation between locals in communally sensitive Marad in 2001 (which was amicably settled by local elders) to provoke the subsequent communal conflagration in 2002 that claimed five lives. Local politicians then used the 2002 riots to create a further divide between Hindus and Muslims in the area. The state government’s procrastination with regard to punishment of those accused in the 2002 riots only served to widen the communal gap. The increasing divide between Hindus and Muslims led to the attack on Marad beach in May 2003.The report accuses the police of persistent inaction and failure to take effective steps to prevent the incident. Justice Joseph flays the then state government for refusing to order a CBI probe into the incident and points out serious lapses on the part of the Kozhikode civil and police administration during that period. Four senior officials who have been criticised by the Thomas P. Joseph Commission include the then district collector TO Sooraj, Kozhikode police commissioner, Sanjiv Kumar Patjoshi, assistant commissioner of police, M. Abdul Raheem and inspector general of police, Mahesh Kumar Singla. The state government has now initiated action against the four officers.
(Source: Communal Combat, October 2006 )


TERRORISM
Thoughts on Terrorism
M.S. Ganesh
Law is codified or axiomatic norm and order is a structured dispensation of that norm. Our perspectives of terrorism, however, tend to dichotomize the two.
This dissonance is inherent in the pedagogy of terrorism in laws and government circulars, in state propaganda, in the postures of political parties, and in the protestations of vested interests about dangers to the ‘fabric of society’. The actual disconnect occurs when the dialogue between law and order breaks down; when, amidst the clash of arms, the laws fall silent. It is on the mutuality of the rule of law and the maintenance of public order that good governance rests. Their reciprocity turns to antagonism when there is misrule and maladministration. These truths apply to municipal law and to international law; to domestic policy as much as to foreign policy.
In the Indian Constitution, Part IV sets out the principles of good governance (called Directive Principles of State Policy and comprising principles such as the one that justice, social, political and economic, shall inform all the institutions of the national life). These are not directly enforceable, but fundamental rights (such as the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, etc.) are. Our courts have said that the relevant directive principles have to be read into the fundamental rights (specified in Part III) that are being enforced. So much for pronouncement. The adjudicative disposition, however, is less often in favour of civil liberties and more often in favour of property rights.
It is not without significance that independence failed to see a decline in laws on preventive detention and terrorism. After the framing of our Constitution, virtually every decade has seen the enactment of terrorism laws or significant amendments thereto. These acts to the security of the state (1953,1962, 1971, 1980), disturbed areas (1955, 1983), terrorism expressly (1967, 1987, 1993, 2002) and special powers for the armed forces (1958, 1972, 1983, 1990). Such a political and legislative history has little to commend it.
These laws reflected political developments in different states and the perception that resolution of tensions and conflicts is possible only through legislation, at least as a first step. The perception was fundamentally flawed. First, legislation could not serve as a substitute for political sagacity and statesmanship, or for administrative efficiency and integrity. More important, the approach failed to discern the irony and self contradiction involved. The flexibility in sociopolitical negotiations within a nascent democracy was compromised by the rigidity of the legislative framework. Third and most important, these acts unwittingly enabled the creation of categories such as the ‘enemies of the people’ in the minds of the unsophisticated.
Definitions of terrorism range from the perpetrator-neutral to the perpetrator-specific. The former would take in both non-state and state actors; the latter would specifically exclude state agencies and instrumentalities, i.e., the police, the paramilitary forces, the armed forces, the intelligence agencies. The politics and deployment of terrorism are more expedient and practicable for the state than they are alleged to be for dissident militant and insurgent groups: the might, the resources, the implicit trust of the populace and its desire for stability, all contribute to weightage in the state’s favour. More deviously, state-sponsored or state-coopted terrorism (e.g. Ranbir Sena, Salva Judum, Gujarat Gaurav) is projected as wholesome, transient, and localized while popular or grass-roots movements are characterized as anti-national, perennial, and extremist. The socio-economic malaise that underlies the unrest is never addressed. Intellectually the state (in all its organs, legislative, executive and judicial) grows effete while the movements (e.g. Naxals, now Maoists, ULFA, SIMI) become rigorous ans robust, galvanized by modern communication technology and sophisticated arms to match, in both ideology and praxis, attracting more comers to the fold. (The growing Maoist pincer is a pointer.) The reactionary movement then spews forth the spiv senas, mostly in urban and semi-urban centres, with the inevitable overlord as an extra-constitutional authority. Even when they slash works of art and vandalize hospitals, they are not seen as terrorists.
Massoda Parveen vs Union of India and Ors (dicided on May 02 2007 by the Supreme Court) provides an egregious example of Impressionism good in art, bad for forensic decision making. In writ petitions by members of the armed forces against orders of military tribunals, the courts defer to the decisions of the courts martial on merits, and only intervene on procedural violation. That cannot be the approach when a civilian widow, aggrieved by her civilian husband’s death in army custody, seeks to enforce her fundamental rights against the armed forces, especially when they are required to act ‘in aid of the civil power’. The Supreme Court has approached the case as if it were a preventive detention matter or a criminal trial. Neither Regoo nor his next of kin had or have any opportunity either before an advisory board or a criminal \ special court to establish his innocence.
Unlike the preventive detention or disturbed areas acts (MISA, NSA, the Punjab Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed Forces Special Powers Acts for Assam and Manipur, Punjab and Chandigarh, and J & K), the terrorism acts (TADA and POTA) crate penal offence. Under preventive detection laws there is an advisory board to consider detention; under terrorism laws there are special courts; but under the AFSPAs there is no statutory f orum for redress. So if an alleged militant or terrorist like Regoo is killed in contravention of the statute, there is no way to establish his innocence. In such cases, the statutory mandate that the army authorities must act ‘in aid of the civil power’ is rendered meaningless. Under the Protection of Human Rights Act, the NHRC can deal with complaints against members of the armed forces, but in a severely circumscribed manner. It can seek a report from the central government, but it can only make recommendations. It has no teeth, and cannot enforce its decisions.
Such negation of civilian rights by the state first by its military arm, then by its executive arm, and finally by its judicial arm is tribulation without trial and verges on the Kafkaesque.

Modus Operandi of Police in Terrorist Cases
Harsh Mander
In today’s world, one of the many things should have been globalised is prejudice. In the name of the global war on terrorism, an entire community has been labelled and demonised. Terror attacks, whether in Washington, London or Madrid, are followed by paranoid surveillance, strip searches and prolonged detentions of large numbers of Muslim youth, often without even tenuous evidence or respect for their elementary human rights.
The latest to join this global assault on democratic rights is the Congress government. The Andhra Pradesh. The state Minorities Commission has reported the abduction and illegal detention and torture by the police of a large number of Muslim youth within days of the blasts on August 25, 2007. In several terrified many youth “disappeared” for several days without legal trace. Chilling testimonies made by youth before the fact-finding committee established by the Commission.
Tens of some how are hundreds — Muslim youth have been forcibly picked up from their homes, and more often while they are on way to work or the market or to worship, without legal arrest. These detentions are by men in civilian clothes presumed to be policemen.
As they struggle against their abductors, they are bundled into vehicles without number plates, their eyes covered with blindfolds that they are not allowed to remove throughout their detention, their hands bound and their mouths gagged. They are then driven to unknown destinations, possibly farm houses in the periphery of the city. In these locations they, and other youth, are subjected to various forms of torture, including denial of food for long periods, electric shocks and beatings on the soles of their feet. Their eyes continuously masked, they lose track of night and day. They are driven every few days to new torture chambers, grilled about their role in the bomb blasts and coerced to agree about their alleged role in the blasts and their sympathies with international jehad. They are continuously battered with communally-charged taunts by the interrogating policemen. Some succumb by signing blank confession papers; others stoutly resist.
Their hapless families are, of course, not informed by the police about the detention. They are sometimes informed by witnesses of the police abduction. Many are poorly educated and impoverished, desperate, but unable to comprehend how to set about finding their loved ones. They contact the police, who deny any knowledge of the missing men. Others frantically contact lawyers and human rights organisations to file habeas corpus petitions in the high court. These are heard without urgency by the judges, and the police routinely deny, in court, that the missing men are in their custody. However, in a few days, they are indeed produced by the same police before magistrates, claiming that they were arrested just a day earlier. It is not possible that the habeas corpus petitions could have been filed, in anticipation of their future arrest by the police.
They were visibly traumatised, some vomited blood, and others were severely dehydrated with swollen limbs and barely able to walk since these injuries “are not self inflicted, these obviously arose during police custody... in custodial atrocities.
What is even more worrying is that the magistrates abdicate their duties by wantonly ignoring the visible signs of torture when the detained youth are presented before them. Even the high court judges ignore Supreme Court guidelines, by listing habeas corpus matters for hearing only once a week, unmindful of the imminent threats to the survival of the youth detainee.
Even after legal production, following prolonged interrogation under torture, the police could still not charge. The police allege the youths’ support for international jehad ‘proved’ by possession and propagation of ‘inflammatory’ CDs and pamphlets. Is that evidence to detain me for waging war against the State.
The dazed families live with their loss in intense social isolation. They are not just stigmatised by people of the ‘other’ community, even their neighbours, friends and relatives avoid contact with them, for fear that they too will be suspected by the authorities to harbour sympathies with terrorism. The larger community, especially poorer Muslims, subsist with the daily cold dread that their own loved one may be the next target of the police.
Speaking from the heart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned recently against the dangers of precisely such ‘labelling’ of communities as unpatriotic or violent. But governments led by his own party, in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Assam, do not seem to heed. He recalled that his own community of Sikhs was similarly labelled in the 1980s. What he did not mention was that thousands of youth were similarly abducted by the police in Punjab in those times, exterminated and cremated in mass graves.
After terror incidents, a hamstrung police is under unbearable pressure to perform. But crippled by ramshackle intelligence, poor investigative skills, demoralised and untrained forces and the crumbling fibre of police leadership, it resorts to shortcuts like illegal abductions and torture that Hyderabad witnessed. The advocate appointed by the Commission, Ravi Chandran, concludes, “What is at stake is not just the lives of 20 odd young boys living in resigned solitariness in a cell tucked away somewhere on the periphery of the modern city. What is at stake is the functioning of a healthy democracy. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”
(Source: The Hindustan Times, October 24, 2007)

RELIGIOUS RIGHTS
On Protecting Places Of Worship
Dr Chandra Muzaffar, president, International Movement for a Just World
Issues pertaining to places of worship should be handled with care and compassion. This is a fundamental principle in the management of multi-religious societies that those in authority and the public at large should uphold.
Rules on the construction, maintenance, relocation, and, in extraordinary circumstances, the demolition of a place of worship, should be unambiguous and precise. They should be applied and implemented in a fair and just manner without any bias. No community should feel aggrieved by a decision made by the authorities, or the manner in which the decision is made. Because of the sensitivities involved, a special commission on public places of worship should be established which would regulate, administer and arbitrate all matters pertaining to places of worship. Given our federal system, the proposed commission should operate at both state and federal levels. The Chief Minister should head the state commission while the Prime Minister should head the federal commission.
The International Movement for a Just World (JUST) had first suggested such a commission in another context in July 2003. JUST had at that time formulated an international Convention on the Protection of Places of worship which, among other things, sought to provide a mechanism in international law to protect all places of worship. We felt that such a law will foster global consciousness on the imperative need to ensure that each and every place of worship is treated with the respect and reverence it deserves.
JUST managed to collect 10,504 signatures from organizations and individuals in 56 countries in support of the idea. Some of the world’s most prominent civil society organizations based upon religion endorsed our proposal. Among them were the Nahdatul Ulama and the Muhamaddiyah in Indonesia; the World Council of Churches with its affiliates in numerous countries; and the International Network of Engaged Buddhists with members and supporters in various parts of the world. apart from well-known multi-faith organizations such as the World Parliament of Religions. So did a wide spectrum of human rights and peace groups, in addition to specific professional bodies. Three well-known Nobel Peace Laureates — Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa; Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland; and Adolfo Esquivel from Argentina — were among the endorsers.
Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also gave strong backing to the proposal. JUST had hoped that other ASEAN governments could also be persuaded to support the idea and together ASEAN could push for an international convention at the United Nations. However, this has not happened.
Nonetheless, the importance of sensitizing people everywhere to the religion ‘of the other’, including their place of worship, cannot be emphasized enough. At a time when conflicts and conflagrations with religious overtones are becoming more pervasive, it is vital that a more conscious effort be made by everyone to strengthen inter-religious understanding.
At the same time, the threshold of religious sensitivity among politicians, bureaucrats, social activists and religious personalities in Malaysia has declined. Tun Ghazali Shafie, then a senior Cabinet Minister, intervened to ensure that the project would be carried out in such a way that the temple would not be affected. Ghazali.
Of course, it is not always possible to avoid demolitions. It is how it is handled that distinguishes a sensitive, mature politician or bureaucrat from an insensitive and immature one. When one is sensitive to the religious other one would have some appreciation of their rights and freedoms.
An appreciation of the rights and aspirations of the religious other, it should be borne in mind, is also integral to Islamic teachings. It was not just the Prophet Muhammad who upheld this principle. Great rulers from Sayyidina Ali Ibn Talib to Salahuddin Al-Ayubi (Saladdin) displayed so much empathy for the non-Muslim communities that lived under their rule. In fact, in almost all religious communities in the past there have been rulers who were accommodative of the other.
It is only that spirit of mutual accommodation, trust and respect that can secure our present and safeguard our future — both nationally and globally.

HERITAGE
Jaunpur: Forgotten Heritage City in East UP
Raghu Karnad
In this brick-and-mortar district headquarters in eastern UP, the hotels are few but the attractions are several. The town is scattered with mosques, tombs, havelis, remnants of a unique architecture and history.
Like a chessboard at the end of a game, Jaunpur’s still-standing pieces recount the advances and capitulations that left them where they stand.
Jaunpur fell to Sikander Lodhi who was so vexed he vowed not to spare a single structure of the Sharqis.
One sultanate destroyed temples to build mosques; a second sultanate destroyed the mosques; a third did what it could to restore both. Lying halfway out between Delhi and Bengal, Jaunpur began as a fortified outpost protecting the eastern flank of the Delhi Sultanate. When the Tughlaq line faltered at the close of the 14th century, the upstart governor of Jaunpur proclaimed sovereignty and called himself Malik-us-Sharq (Kim of the East).
Today’s district headquarters was the capital of the Sharqi kingdom 600 years ago, and Jaunpur swelled with commerce and construction. Then the Lodis assumed power in Delhi and rode east. Jaunpur fell, and its proudest structures fell with it. Sikander Lodi was so vexed with the Sharqis that he vowed not to spare a single thing they built. Later, Jaunpur twice became the stronghold of renegade Lodhi princelings, and twice it failed them. Its turmoil only ended once the Mughals reestablishment peace and began to restore the city.
Throughout two centuries of high politics and war, the heart of Jaunpur remained intact and imposing. The Shahi Fort, built by Firozshah Tughlaq in 1360, still commands the highest point in the city, its bulbous ramparts overlooking the shining Gomti river with the 14-metre high gateway. Inside, the walls enclose a pretty park of hospitable lawns and flowering shrubs. In the forecourt is a small but beautiful prayer hall, with a twelve-metre commemorative pillar before it. A.K. Sinha, the asi’s local conservation assistant, says an inscription on the column declares the fort a place for “Hindus to read the Gita and Muslims to read the Koran and Christians to read the Bible”.
Behind the prayer hall, a large Turkish-style hammam hunches low in the ground. Inside it is jumble of dim corridors and rooms with sunken pools. The pools originally had copper lids and water was heated by refracting sunbeams from the skylights onto it. The hammam is called ‘bhoolbhulaiya’ because of its winding corridors, which the imagination easily fills with perfumed steam.
The, are battles that determine Jaunpur’s heritage. The Shahi Fort is the only protected monument in Jaunpur—the only place where you pay for entrance of Jaunpur’s three most prominent mosques, the Lal Darwaza. A few years ago, was appropriated by the Hussainiya madrassa, which painted the tall central portal in toothpaste pink (previously, its granite stone would have been painted with vermillion sand) and replaced the carved jaali windows with ’70s-style tinted glass panes. It now looks like the office of an unscrupulous district collector.
Thankfully, the oldest and the grandest of the Sharqi mosques are still unrenovated and only in slight disrepair.
The oldest mosque, and a striking archetype of Sharqi design, is the Atala Masjid. A courtyard is surrounded on three sides by pillared walls, and on the fourth by a high-ceilinged prayer hall. At the centre of the prayer hall is a domed sanctuary, and in front of the sanctuary a tall ornate portal, almost like a gopuram. The portal hides the main dome, a unique feature of Sharqi architecture. In the Atala Masjid, the gorgeous portal rises twenty-three metres, covered with ornate botanical engravings, creepers and flowers rather than the geometric detailing or calligraphy with the Islamic lexicon of motifs.
A plaque installed by the district administration celebrates this syncretic flourish of Sharqi architecture. Apparently it reveals “the broad-mindedness of Ibrahim Shah Sharqi as it represents the unique ideal of a composite Hindu-Muslim Art of architecture”. The asi website that “a large number of its pillars, brackets, lintels and flat ceilings were extracted from Hindu monuments”. The mosque is itself named after Atala Devi, whose temple once occupied the site.
The courtyard of the Atala Masjid is full of the sounds of community life: the gurgle and splash of water, little boys singing in class.
In comparison, the Jami Masjid, built in 1470 by the last of the Sharqis, is a proud and sombre place, presaging the fall of the dynasty in less than a decade. The mosque sits atop a six-metre plinth, and the flight of steps leading up to it is steep. The courtyard of the Jami Masjid is spacious, plain, silent, with a central fountain and a pair of rustling date-palms, a very desert oasis.
The Jami Masjid seems to be the only monument that Jaunpur’s citizens have not turned to their modern needs. The most gaily overrun monument of all is the Bridge of Munim Khan, commissioned by Akbar in 1567. Ten handsome, hexagonal pylons throw their arches across the Gomti, each one supporting a cupola, added later by a British administrator. Once more utilitarian bridges came up downstream, the Munim Khan bridge was taken over by a colourful and clamorous street fair. It is now flanked by two mosques at street-level, and two temples at river-level, leading down to ghats. The cupolas on the bridge are occupied by displays of underwear and cellphone accessories, but nobody objects if you perch inside to watch the river flow.
Although it is close enough to Benares to make a painless and rewarding day-trip, no tourist ever comes to Jaunpur. As a result, Jaunpuris are diffident and unobtrusive. The town is tangled up in its own chaotic affairs. The monuments lie open to be explored, open to be lived in, open to be prayed in, scarred by every century that has passed over them, including our own.
(Source: Outlook, 14 January, 2008)

MUSLIM MINORITIES
The Sri Lankan Muslim Minority: A Bridge to Harmony
Dr. Rauvaiz Hanifa
The population of Sri Lanka in the last census in 2001 was 18.7 million. The Muslim population works out to an absolute figure of about 1.2-1.5 million. There are significant sub-ethnic divisions based on their place of origin.
All Muslim sub-groups are Sunni Muslims with the exception of the Bohras who are Shia Muslims. The majority of the Muslims (74%) live outside the north and Eastern provinces though the Eastern province has the highest concentration of Muslims.
The Non-North coastal districts of Colombo, Puttlam and Kalutara with concentrations inland in pockets, in the Central, North Central and Southern provinces. Muslim have lived and continue to live inter spaced among the Sinhalese and Tamils enjoying peaceful coexistence with other cultures and communities. It is projected that by 2040 Sri Lankan Muslims will constitute 10% of the population.
The unique feature of Muslims of Sri Lanka is that most of them are either bilingual or trilingual, in that they speak two or more languages spoken in Sri Lanka (Sinhala, Tamil, Malay and English). This has enabled them to interact with other linguistic and cultural communities and establish stable relationships with all ethnic groups. This has often made them the link community between the majority Sinhalese and the dominant minority Tamils.
Economically most Muslims are engaged in secondary and tertiary occupations such as petty trade and most are employed as salesmen subsistence agriculture and fishing. Of late there has been a marked increase in Muslims entering professional fields. Muslims are also dominant force in the retail sector of the Sri Lankan economy being owner of large and efficient trading houses. There is also a Muslim presence in the shipping and financial sectors. There is presence of Muslim in almost all spheres of economic activity in Sri Lanka.
Until recently, Muslims have aligned themselves with national political parties. But due to the national parties not taking into account the political aspirations of their Muslim voter bases, Muslim have established regional religious-based parties. Muslim political parties ha to some extent addressed political, educational and socio-economic issues of mainly the eastern Muslims. This is leading to a polarization of the Sri Lankan Muslim community into a politically empowered eastern politically barren non-eastern segment.
The 1915 Muslim-Sinhalese riots left a permanent scar on the Sri Lankan Muslim psyche and reminds them that after all they are a vulnerable minority. This unfortunate incident caused a monumental shift in Muslim thinking, which is visible even today. The Muslims has become accustomed to the protection of the Sinhalese during the Portuguese and Dutch periods. The foundation for the 1915 riots was laid in 1907 with the construction of a mosque in Gampola along the route of a traditional Buddhist procession. This issue was challenged by both the communities and the legal wrangling went on until 1915 when the matter was taken up by the Supreme Court of Ceylon which overruled the judgment of the local court, which favoured the Buddhist procession. This led to a deep resentment against the Muslim community. These feelings of hostility came to a head during the annual Vesak perahera in Kandy, when some Muslims watching it made uncalled for remarks at the perahera. This let the spark for island-wide riots which affected the Muslims and took days for the British to bring it under control. The Sinhalese indirectly tested the British authority at the expense of the Muslim minority. A minority should not allow extremist forces on either side to take undue advantage.
Present Status
Since the independence Muslims have attempted to safeguard, sustain and advance their distinctive cultural identity. They have sought and obtained support from successive government for this purpose in two distinctive areas, namely the consolidation and recognition of personal laws of the Muslims and education.
In the field of education Muslim have made considerable progress. The community has received state patronage to set up a separate system of Muslim schools to cater to the special cultural and religious needs of Muslim students by Moulavis appointed by the Ministry of Education. The Muslims also won the right to university admission on an ethnic and district quota system.
During the period 1970-1977 when foreign exchange was controlled, Muslims were granted special permission to obtain foreign currency for the purpose of the Hajj. The year 1980 was a landmark the community was granted a Department of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs and Hon. M. H. Mohamed, MP had the privilege of being the first cabinet minister in charge of it. The department was able to coordinate various activities of the community, which until then came under the preview of a multitude of government agencies. The streamlined and increased the bureaucratic efficiency on many matters specially the administration of Muslim places of worship.
Muslims had a representative in the legislative council as far back as 1889. This representative was appointed by the British, though the representation was inadequate and non representative. The Moors Union, formed in 1900 evolved into the Ceylon Moors Association in 1922 and into the All Ceylon Muslim League (ACML) in 1924. The period between 1936 to 1945 was one of political turmoil. Muslim women also agitated for their “freedom” which resulted in the formation of the Moor Ladies Union in 1941. The community reassessed its long-term political direction. This reassessment was eloquently summarized in 1938 by a Muslim leader of the time Sir Mohamed Macan Maker who said “we the minorities do not want equal representation with the Sinhalese, what we want is adequate representation and good government. I prefer this country to be ruled by the Sinhalese. This statement reinforced the trust Muslims as a minority had in the majority community and is true of the Muslim community even today. Every cabinet since 1947 has had a Muslim member. Even more remarkable is the ready acceptance of Muslims by Sinhalese voters in electorates in which Muslims are a minority.
The political landscape began to change with the escalation of the ethnic conflict following the Sinhala-Tamil riots in 1983. This was a reminder to the Muslims the need for a more concentrated political leadership than what the national parties were offering. The national parties of which Muslims were ardent supporters began to ignore and marginalize democratically elected Muslim leaders. This resulted in the formation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Concerns (SLMC) in the late 1980’s. Due to change in the electoral system from a first past the post to a proportional representation one, in the early 1990’s the SLMC was able to use the “communal” appeal to its voter base in the east and gain representation in parliament. This lead to a situation where the national parties came to rely on regional / religious based parties to deliver the minorities votes to them. The problem with regard to the Muslim minority in this scenario was that as the majority of the Muslims lived outside the eastern province, they had no mechanisms to realize their political aspirations as the SLMC, which is based in the east. The eastern Muslims are gaining politically at the expense of the majority non-eastern Muslims. In my opinion this is not a healthy situation for the long term outlook of the Muslim community. The SLMC since about the late 1990’s has begun to disintegrate into numerous fractions diluting its voter base. National parties particularly the United National Party (UNP) are beginning to realize their folly and are beginning to take the Muslim voter base seriously.
The conflict, which initially began between the Sinhalese and the Tamils on issues of language, land, educational and employment opportunities gradually, engulfed the Muslim communities in the north and east. The most affected are the northern Muslims. They have been ethnically cleansed from LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) controlled areas in October 1990. This resulted in 15,000 Muslims fleeing these areas within the 48-hour dead line. These Muslims are now scattered throughout the island with concentration in the Puttalam district where they live in “refugee camps” in their own country. At the time of expulsion it is estimated that there were 128 mosques, 26 shrines, 139 Madrasa and 65 Muslim government schools. In addition the expelled Muslims owned 13,978 acres of paddy land, 18,907 acres of coconut land and owned 2,395 commercial establishments. The estimated economic loss following the expulsion would exceed US$ 110 million (at 1990 rates). This a classic example of oppression of a minority by another minority.
The return of the Muslims to the North and parts of the Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka will not be viable and secure unless accompanied by a lasting solution to the ethnic conflict. This is why there should be a representative Muslim dimension to the peace process in Sri Lanka. Muslim representation at the peace process should not be the exclusive domain of any particular political party. It should be an inclusive process of all Muslims of Sri Lanka. The reality with regards to the solution of the ethnic problem is that there should be a reformed structure of the state and the nation. We can no longer continue to seek homogeneity within the nation state structure. Without a sense of diversity and plurality we cannot survive as a community and evolve as nation. Pluralistic societies are a must and contribute to the survival of not only the minority but also the majority particularly in multiethnic and multilinguistic societies such as ours.
The Tsunami struck us without any warning on the morning of 26th December 2004. It caused loss life in excess of 30,000. We will never no the exact number. It made 800,000 people homeless and destroyed 200,000 housing units. The Muslim minority was disproportionately affected owing to the fact that the affected districts and areas were predominantly inhabited by Muslims. Therefore it would be fair to say that we were the worst affected community in Sri Lanka. In the immediate aftermath the country as a whole and the Muslims community in particularly responded with courage. There is still much to be done in collaboration with the Government, the international community and local and foreign NGOs.
The Future
As a minority we have not only survived with our majority Sinhalese and Tamil countrymen but have made considerable progress in integrating ourselves into the fabric of the nation. We are the most flexible community in Sri Lanka. This will serve us well in our endeavour.
The challenges we face are two fold:
1. Challenges within the community.
2. Challenges of living in multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual society in a world, which is fast becoming a global village.
a) Youth: Community leaders must ensure that the youth are brought up in a manner which will ensure that they are well versed in the traditions and heritage that make us Sri Lankan Muslims. At the same time we must ensure that they are not homogenized to an extent that they will not be able to integrate into a multicultural society.
“Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will , to be right , must be reasonable. The minorities possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate it would be oppression”.
( Source: The Muslim World League, May/June, 2007)

WORLD TRENDS
Global Upsurge of
Sub-nationalism in Nation-States
Fareed Zakaria, Editor News Week
Pakistan’s deepest cleavage is not between religious extremism and liberalism, nor even dictatorship and democracy. It is between the country’s various regions. And in this regard, Pakistan is part of a growing phenomenon — the persistence and growing strength of subnational groups. With the end of the battle of ideologies — communism, socialism, liberalism — human beings’ oldest identities have moved to the core of politics. It is why people vote and what they will die for.
Many in the West hope that elections will heal some of these divisions, but last week’s elections in Kenya had the opposite effect. The campaign broke down largely along ethnic lines. This is not unusual. Iraq’s elections — badly designed and prematurely introduced — are the bloodiest example of polls that furthered divides within a country. None of these fault lines were created by democracy, but elections can exacerbate divisions.
Nor is economic growth a miracle cure for the assertion of identity; in fact the two seem to go happily hand in hand. Two weeks ago, one of India’s fastest-growing states, Gujarat, re-elected an unabashed Hindu nationalist for a third term as chief minister. In 2002 Narendra Modi presided over the first genuine pogrom in independent India’s history. Modi’s campaign was designed largely around regional identity. He couched issues of development, governance and sectarianism around the core idea of “Gujarati pride.”
Throughout India, caste, region and language are proving far more durable sources of identity and political power than any national idea.
Subnationalism is thriving even in postmodern Europe. A crucial political issue facing Europe and the United States this month is the status of Kosovo, a part of Serbia that wishes to secede. Last year Belgium went six months without a government because its Flemish- and French-speaking populations have starkly divergent visions of their country’s future. And in Britain, Scotland has elected a ruling party committed to pursuing independence, which would unravel the 1707 Acts of Union that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland and Wales.
Why is this happening, and why now? Globalization and democratization are the broad trends of the day, and both have the effect of empowering small groups within countries and weakening the nation-state. Gujarat can prosper without much reference to or help from New Delhi. The Sindhis can maintain their sense of identity far better today — with regional television, Website and cheap communication — than ever before. In such circumstances, the pull of old identities — all of them much older than the nation-state —dominates politics.
The United States has often tried to impose its own narrative onto events in foreign lands. But often this storyline — of a struggle between Islamic radicals and secular democrats, is a mask for these more basic battles. Whatever Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s failings, his successor will surely have to deal warily with the rise of Pashtun nationalism, which is the underlying base of support for the Taliban. Even if violence continues to diminish, the divide between Iraq’s three communities has become the country’s core political problem. There are no good answers other than the long, hard work of nation-building — political bargains, compromises and institution-building, . All this makes for a world that is becoming rich, empowered and unmanageable.
(Source: The Indian Express, 8 January, 2008)
On Islamic Democracy
Loard Bhiku Parekh, M.P. (UK)
In some Muslim countries, there is a strong desire to develop Islamic democracies. These countries are committed to Islam and its vision of the good life, but they also value democracy and have explored alternatives to the individualist and largely secular liberal democracy. Since democracy locates political authority in the people, it clearly has a secular thrust, but it would be wrong to say that it is conceptually incompatible with religion or that a religiously based democracy is inherently impossible. Islam insists that sovereignty ultimately derives from God. This can be reconciled with democracy by arguing that people are its inheritors on earth. Islam views the Quran as the source of authoritative norms and injunctions. This, too, creates no problems as long as their meaning and entailments are publicly debated, and those that are accepted command popular consensus. The role of the mullahs can raise problems, but it, too, can be dealt with by a suitable separation of powers, as has been done in Iran. Other difficulties are more acute. Are people free to modify, disregard or go against the Quranic injunctions? Can they opt for a secular state? Can they allow apostasy? In each case, democracy requires that they should; Islam, however, takes the opposite view. Although the tension is often irresoluble in theory, much can be done to mitigate it in theory; much can be done to mitigate it in practice by reinterpreting the relevant injunctions, using the Quranic freedom to disregard them in times of crisis, claiming that they are only binding in a truly Islamic society, or in other all too familiar ways.
Although Islamic (or Buddhist, Christian or Hindu) democracy is committed to certain collective goals and draws its moral energy from them, it is a democracy so long as it satisfies the following conditions. Government should be freely chosen by the people and accountable to them. Freedoms of speech, association protest should be allowed, and interpretations of the basic principles of Islam should be subject to public debate. There should be universal franchise, rule of law, and those basic rights that are needed to sustain the individual’s sense of independence and self-worth. Such a democracy might not allow pornography, a woman’s freedom to dress as she pleases or homosexuality. However, as long as these restraints are publicly debated and represent the free choice of the people, they do not undermine its democratic credentials. Although a religious democracy may restrict the freedoms that liberals value, it could offer other compensating advantages such as a strong sense of community, solidarity and a meaningful life.
At the heart of Islamic or any other religiously based democracy, there is a constant tension between the requirements of religion and democracy. However, this is not unique to it. Liberal democracy, too, contains a tension between the principles of liberalism and democracy, the former stressing the individual and the latter the community, so much so that for over a century liberals and democrats wondered if they could come to terms with one another. The tension remains, but almost all liberal democracies have found ways of not only containing but benefiting from it. Islamic democracy need be no different, and we should welcome attempts to evolve different forms of democracy. Islam could give democracy moral and spiritual depth and offer new principles of social organization. For its part, democracy could offer new ways of interpreting and relating to modern times.
(Source:IILM India Forum, December, 2007)


MUSLIM WORLD
Empowerment of Women through Micro Credit & Education Effective Curbs on Population Growth
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar
From the first Census in 1981, Muslim population growth has always exceeded Hindu growth, even when contraception was unknown.
Why? For three reasons. First, widow remarriage was encouraged by Muslims but shunned by Hindus, and this greatly affected fertility rates.
Second, men migrating for work had fewer children, and migrant workers were disproportionately Hindu
Third, Hindus and Sikhs had a tradition of killing newborn girls in Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
The latest Census says that the number of females per 1,000 males is 936 for Muslims and 931 for Hindus, not a significant difference. Clearly female infanticide by Hindus and Sikhs has diminished.
But this is now more than offset by the rise of female foeticide, using sonography followed by selective female abortion. For children below six years, the number of girls per 1,000 boys is 950 for 925 for Hindus, and a deplorable 786 for Sikhs.
Female infanticide and foeticide reduce population indirectly as well as directly. Even after ers the total fertility rate (lifetime births per woman), population growth can be rapid for two decades because of what demographers call population momentum: future mothers have already been born.
But female infanticide and foeticide ensure that future mothers are not born, and so reduce population momentum. This is part of the reason for falling Hindu population growth.
Religious attitudes can indeed influence fertility, but tend to be flexible globally. In the 1960s and 1970s, Middle East countries had the highest fertility rates in the world, but those rates have plummeted in the last two decades.
Iran’s fertility rate is now just 2.0 per woman, signifying zero population growth. In Bangladesh, fertility has fallen dramatically from 6.1 in 1980 to just 2.9 in 2001. India’s rate in the same period declined from 5.0 to 2.9.
So, Bangladeshi Muslims have reduced fertility much faster than Indian Hindus (and without the benefit of female foeticide).
I believe that NGOs like Grameen Bank and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Centre (BRAC) have played a major role in changing traditional attitudes in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank pioneered micro-credit, giving small loans to groups of women.
This empowered women in several ways. It gave them control over money, and hence a new status. It helped women think of themselves as decision-makers and entrepreneurs, not dependents on males. It helped women join the workforce.
Empowered women the world over give more attention to education, health and small families. These trends are evident in Bangladesh.
BRAC runs 70,000 schools in Bangladesh, and is an educational force paralleling the government. Almost all teachers in BRAC schools are women, and BRAC encourages women teachers to ride motorcycles.
In rural Bangladesh (or India) the motorcycle is the ultimate macho symbol, and a woman on a motorcycle represents a gender revolution.
Indian Muslims need to learn from Bangladesh. They too need to create micro-credit institutions that empower women. They too need to set up schools with female teachers (which in turn increase female school attendance).
Micro-credit in India is concentrated in the southern states, and it is no coincidence that these have the lowest Muslim population growth.
The Census puts female literacy at 50.1 per cent for Muslims against 53.2 per cent for Hindus, only a small difference.
But female participation in the workforce is as low as 14 per cent for Muslims, against 27.5 per cent for Hindus. Global research shows that fertility drops when women enter the workforce and earn cash.
As long as women do unpaid work at home and on the family farm, husbands expect them to keep bearing children. But once a woman earns cash from wages or business, having a child means a temporary stoppage of cash income.
Suddenly men see female labour as valuable, and opt for smaller families. Micro-credit and education will surely encourage more Muslim women to join the workforce, with important consequences for fertility.
So, forget attempts to communalism a population growth. Forget schemes to penalise people for having more children.
Just empower women with micro-credit and education, if we facilitate their entry into the workforce.
(Source: The Times of India, 11 September, 2007)
The US Neo-Wilsonian Grand Strategy for the Middle East-I
Subterfuge for Neo-Liberal Conquests
Edddiej Girdner
The Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) is a new project adopted by the US government to protect its interests its influence in a troubled region where anti-American feelings are running high. With the rationale of fighting terrorism and instoring democracy, the American leadership seeks to lift the remaining barriers to Anglo-Saxon economic hegemony and shape more compliant regimes in strategically important countries.
The United States has been an imperial power for over a century. The projection of imperial power must be grounded in ideological justifications. ‘Democracy promotion’ in the Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) and the ‘war on terrorism’ are only the most recent pretexts for US intervention and ideological covers for US imperialism. Today, ‘democracy promotion’ is also forwarded as a cure for the ‘breeding of terrorism’ in the Middle East. This is known to be false by intelligence agencies, such as the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA0). What is obvious, but not often stated, is that what is described as terrorism is generally a reaction to US imperialist foreign policies. This is well known but denied in official quarters.
The standard argument from many government officials today is that ‘terrorism is very difficult to define’. Terrorism is not only quite easy to define. The US Army Manual defines terrorism as “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature through intimidation, coercion or instilling fear”.
The reason that it is often said that terrorism is hard to define because many states continue to rely upon terrorism to pursue their policies. Hardly a day goes by without new revelations of terror tactics used by the United States in the ‘war on terrorism’- secret prisons, secret CIA flights through European countries, torture at Guantanamo Bay or in the Abu Ghraib Prison and so on. European states have generally cooperated with the United States in covering up these activities.
President George W Bush made a statement claiming that the US and embarked upon a new policy designed to bring freedom to the peoples of the Middle East. This was made at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, a conservative think tank, which is also the home of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). In fact, the NED is the CIA’s main front for influencing the outcome of elections around the world.
The Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) is not about increasing freedom and democracy but rather about increasing freedom for Western capital and ensuring continued US political and economic control of the region. It is a programme for the consolidation of neo-liberal capitalism in the region and the control of oil as a basis for global power. Secondly, the programme is intended to extend o the Middle East, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) model of US control of political parties and politics, pioneered in Latin America and other areas of the world. Private foundations and American corporations are used to aid pro-business and pro-American political parties. Third, the hard-core neo-conservative vision of bringing democracy to the Middle East through force has begun to founder in the mire the post-invasion colossal US-British failure in Iraq. Fourth, neo-conservative Wilsonianism and neo-conservative claims of restoring morality and a ‘great nation’status to the United States through democracy promotion is merely ideological cover for the attempt to control the world by foarce. The United States believes that it is necessary to control the Middle East in order to control the European Union, India, and emerging China. In many cases, US hegemony in the region will continue to require the control of oligarchies and autocratic regimes. This logic of hegemony is also bound to lead to further conflict.
With the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ nowhere in sight, a new rationale for the war was needed. This was when President George W Bush appeared at the American Enterprise Institute. To declare that the US, as the new Jerusalem, had a divine mission to change the world. The Greater Middle East Initiative was waiting in the wings.
The Greater Middle East Initiative
The GMEI was developed by the US State Department’s Bureau for Near East Affairs. It was to cover 22 Arab nations, Aafghanistan, Israel, Pakistan, and Turkey. In Februaary 2004, the document was leaked to an Arab newspaper, Al-Hayat, shocking many in the Arab world. Subsequently, a modified version, the Broader Middle East and North African Initiative (BMENAI) was to emerge from a conference of the G-8 at Sea Island, Georgia in June 2004. Most Middle East governments saw the GMEI as highly patronizing. Third, the programme would establish a multilateral foundation (similar to NED) for political change. Fourth, it would establish a Middle East Literacy Corps. Fifth, a pilot programme would be set up for promoting business, an emerging middle class, civic education, new non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the training of political leaders in democracy. The programme also called for the establishment of export processing zones or the Middle East equivalent of Mexican maquiladoras to harvest cheap labour in the region.
The Neo-Conservative Vision
Victor Davis Hanson, a professor at the US Naval Academy, has laid out the new Right perspective. In his view, the US policy of supporting autocratic regimes in the Middle East has outlived its historical usefulness. These regimes must go. The Middle East is pathological, made up of sick societies, which will only get worse if they are not transformed. The emergence of a flawed democracy, even if dominated by religious fundamentalist forces, is far better than the status quo. In fact, there are only two types of governments in the Middle East: the ‘sponsors of terrorism’ and the moderate dictatorships’. The sponsors of terrorism include Afghanistan (under the Taliban), Algeria, Iran, Iraq (under Saddam), Libya (until Gaddafi recently changed course), Syria and Yemen. The moderate dictatorships include Egypt, the Gulf States, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.
On balance, according to Hanson, there is not a lot of difference between these two types of regimes. The all ‘breed terrorists’ and survive through bribery, oppression and censorship. They blame the West and Israel for their problems. Under these circumstances, the Untied States has nothing to lose from going after the Middle East with a meat cleaver. For the neo-conservatives, even chaos would be better. For the neo-conservatives, ‘democracy is the only game in town’, that is, neo-liberal democracy that serves the interest of big business.
However, Hanson quickly adds that the price to be paid will be a lengthy presence of American troops in countries where regime changes have been carried out. It is clear that the ten-years or more occupation of Iraq that the Bush Administration is now suggesting was anticipated long in advance. That is why there was no ‘exit strategy’ in Iraq; American officials knew they would not be leaving.
Regime Control/Regime change: The National Endowment for Democracy Model
The US model for controlling and changing political regimes around the world has been in place since shortly after World War II, as part of the covert operations of the CIA. This involves the secret funding or rigging of elections in countries around the world. A current mechanism is to use private corporations, such as the US based consulting firm, Development Alternatives Incorporated, which reportedly has many de facto CIA employees embedded among its personnel. This company operates in about 150 countries around the world.
The core organization for regime control is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). This organization was set up in 1983 under the State Department for secret funding of elections. The National Endowment for Democracy has four attached organizations. This group of organizations is equipped with a versatile tool bag of subterfuges, which may be used secretly to penetrate the politics of societies around the world and not promote democracy, but do precisely the opposite: subvert democracy. Through these organizations, the United States secretly penetrates political parties, trade unions, student and youth organizations, cultural, professional and intellectual societies, women’s organizations, religious organization’s and other civil society organizations. Normally, these organizations are not aware of the origin of the money as funds are diverted through a wide variety of third-party organizations, private foundations and private companies, which sere as conduits for the money.
Wilsonianism has always been about imperialism. Given the US neo-liberal agenda, US policy will continue to be driven by the logic of capitalist accumulation. In the end, this will inevitably require a de facto policy of supporting undemocratic regimes, and perhaps continuous war and even the use of weapons of mass destruction. What is actually meant by democracy is seldom clarified but it is clear that for the neo-conservatives, ‘democracy’ follows the standard formulation of that which serves ‘US national security interest’ meaning mainly capitalist over-accumulation for US multinational corporations. It is designed to serve the needs of elites under the ideological pretext of restoring ‘great nation’ status to America.
Genuine democracy will not result from what the minority corporate class desires and the gap between neo-liberalism and democracy sharpens this crucial contradiction in capitalism. Clearly, the neo-conservatives are using the doctrinal definition of democracy, rather than the generic meaning of rule by the people.
Political systems with rigged elections are considered democratic ad legitimate as long as the winners serve the criteria of US capitalist accumulation and global hegemony. Under this criterion of democracy, elections must be risk-free for elites. In fact, there is nothing new about this. Two historical examples are clearly seen in the US political system and the Japanese political system, set up by the US after World War II. The US political system presents the appearance of a ‘two-party’ political system, when, in fact, the possible winners are two halves of a single business party controlled by US corporations. Even the competition between the two halves (the Republican Party and the Democratic Party) is increasingly restricted as, due to gerrymandering of congressional districts, no more than a dozen districts have real electoral contests. This makes for an exceeding stable system in which the same party, that of capital, win every time.
The Japanese system was set up by the US occupying administration in a similar way. Only the Liberal Democratic Party could win and the real contest was between different factions of this business party, attached to particular big Japanese corporations. Another example of institutional rule, which is risk-free for elites is that of the European Union, especially if the provisions of the Draft European Constitution can be rammed down the throats of the people. In Europe, the prevailing pattern is for people to either make the right decision (for business elites) or if they make the wrong decision, they are informed of this and are forced to repeatedly vote on the same measure until they get it right. There are various mechanisms for rigging political systems in the interests of ruling elities. Those who genuinely insist upon the wishes of the people are considered somehow odd or perhaps insane and are dismissed. The machine hurtles on down the historical track of capitalist accumulation under the rubric of preserving human rights and other ideological window dressings.
(Source: World Affairs Autumn 2006 Vol. 10 No. 3)
Whose Coup, Exactly?
Virginia Tilley, The Electronic Intifada, June 18, 2007
Having sacked Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and dissolved his democratically-elected government, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has now installed Salam Fayyad as the new Prime Minister, to the clear delight of the West. Mutual accusations are hurled by Abbas and Haniyeh that the other side launched a coup against the legitimate authority. That the new PA has virtually no power in the West Bank, and none at all in Gaza, is the first glaring problem with this drama. (Bitter jokes about a ‘two-state solution’ consisting of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have circulated.)
An international community worried by the ‘coup’ accusation might endorse the Fayyad government as the seemingly correct position. But the ‘coup’ claim stumbles over a basic problem — that Abbas’s appointing a new prime minister was itself entirely illegal. The new ‘emergency government’ is illegal, too. According to the Basic Law of Palestine (as amended in 2003), which serves as the constitution of the PA, Abbas can do neither of these things. Nor can the new ‘emergency government’ claim any democratic mandate. This means that Abbas and the Fayyad government are ruling by decree, outside the framework of the Basic Law. So on what basis is that government supposed to govern — and on what basis are foreign governments supposed to deal with it?
According to the Basic Law, Abbas has violated a whole stream of Articles as well as the spirit of its checks and balances, which were designed during the Arafat era partly to limit the power of the presidency. With full US and Israel support (if not their insistence), Abbas has baldly trashed numerous provisions of the Basic Law, including:
* The President can sack his Prime Minister (Article 45) but he cannot legally appoint a new Prime Minister that does not represent the majority party (i.e., Hamas).
* In the event that a President sacks the PM, the Government is considered to have resigned (Article 83), but the serving Cabinet (here, the Hamas-led Cabinet) is supposed to govern until a new Cabinet is confirmed by the Legislative Council (Article 78).
* Only the Legislative Council can confirm the new PM and Cabinet and the new officials cannot take their oaths (Article 67) or assume their duties (Article 79) until this is done. For the Fayyad government may go to the Legislative Council for post hoc approval, but if the Legislative Council cannot vote for lack of a quorum — because too many of its members are in jail or refuse to participate — then the Cabinet cannot be legally confirmed. The Basic Law provides no remedy for conditions where the Legislative Council cannot vote to confirm the Cabinet or the actions of the President.
* The President can rule by degree during emergencies (Article 43) but the Legislative Council must approve all these decrees at its first meeting.
* The President cannot suspend the Legislative Council during a state of emergency (Article 113).
* The President has no power to call early elections, either.
* The Basic Law has no provision whatsoever for an “emergency government.”
What does this mean for the PA? The Fayyad government is the step-child of an extra-legal process with no democratic mandate. The whole manoeuvre is not precisely a palace coup, but it is something like it.
What does this mean for the world? Foreign governments now confront one of the most unwelcome events in international diplomacy — the sudden transformation of a government into a different kind of government. As in any revolution or coup, diplomatic recognition of Salam Fayyad’s “emergency Government” as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people must now be reassessed. For example, by what authority does the “emergency government” act in the name of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza? What capacities and responsibilities does the “emergency government” now have? On what legal and political bases are diplomatic relations to be sustained?
These are legal but also political questions. The PA is the invention of the 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords (it was supposed to serve for a period “not exceeding five years”). But the Basic Law was developed later, to confirm and ensure its democratic character. This set of laws represented a Palestinian state-building measure, providing a start-up framework for Palestinian democracy in anticipation (or at least affirmation) of eventual Palestinian statehood. Hence the Basic Law refers in its introduction to the 1995 Oslo 2 accord but also invokes the Palestinian people as its ultimate political authority (Article 2: “... the people are the source of power ...”).
Governments may therefore attempt to justify sustaining relations with the new Fayyad government out of solidarity with the Palestinian national effort — albeit one in crisis.
Still, foreign governments now face dubious and perplexing options:
They could suspend diplomatic relations with the Fayyad government, on grounds that it is illegal, and deal with the elected Haniyeh government. But this might cripple their communication with Ramallah at a critical time and put them at odds with the US and Israel.
They could sustain diplomatic relations with the Fayyad government, accepting its claim that the Hamas government launched a coup, but they would then be endorsing a government that is violating its own laws and has itself effectively pulled a coup.
They could accept the new Fayyad government on condition that it now obey other provisions of the Basic Law, such as gaining Legislative Council approval and/or calling new elections. But the Basic Law doesn’t allow the Cabinet to call new elections and this new Cabinet doesn’t have any legal standing to govern anyway. (It’s also hard to see how new national elections could be held when the Haniyeh government refuses to recognize the new Cabinet and conditions in both territories are so contrary to free and fair elections.)
They could pull a classic diplomatic side-step by calling the situation a temporary constitutional crisis and maintaining relations with both sides, but this tactic will quickly bog down because present events look more like the complete collapse of the Basic Law and its framework.
Facing this mess, they could do a back-step: suspend formal diplomatic relations but maintain communication with both sides, pending further developments, but what about those formal agreements (exchange, trade, security, diplomatic representation) they may have signed with the PA? Which side is truly representative and to whom are they accountable?
There are other legalistic maneuvers they could try, such as treating the PA under terms established by the Oslo Accords or the Gaza-Jericho agreement of 1994. But none of those documents provide for a prime minister or any of the procedures being acted out in Ramallah.
In short, the diplomatic landscape is now in utter disarray. The Fayyad Government has no democratic mandate, is not operating by the very rules that establish its democratic legitimacy, and so is only a facsimile of the ‘government’ with which many of the world’s states established diplomatic relations. It does not help that the United States, an obedient Europe, and legless Arab states have trotted up to anoint it as the sole legitimate authority. Nor does it help to pretend that Hamas — a broad movement with popular legitimacy — will simply disappear through decrees from Abbas and some nice political theatre.
It is not clear how long this flimsy diplomatic pretense can hold up to scrutiny by a skeptical world. Nor is it clear what political costs foreign governments will have to absorb if they try to play along with it — especially when the now-traumatized Palestinian people, in the territories and in Diaspora, begin protesting their government’s being hijacked by anti-democratic figureheads for Israeli and US agendas. Being targeted as supporting this pantomime government was not the goal of those governments who recognized the PA to support the Palestinian people. As UN official Alvaro De Soto put it in his eloquent ‘End of Mission Report’ this May, ‘It may be better to be the one who raises questions about the Emperor’s new clothes than to be ridiculed as the naked Emperor oneself.’

Question of Palestine in Consultative Committee on External Affairs
Briefing by MEA Spokesperson, 12 December, 2007
• The External Affairs Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, chaired the meeting of the Consultative Committee on External Affairs on 12 December, 2007, the Committee also covered the issue of India’s bilateral relations with the West Asian countries.
• As part of his opening statement, External Affairs Minister briefed the Members on India’s close interaction with West Asian countries. He emphasized that India’s engagements with these countries in the political, economic, cultural and other fields has grown considerably and West Asia has emerged as an important region whose stability and security has a direct relevance for India.
• On the Palestine issue, EAM stated that India supports a negotiated solution resulting in a sovereign, independent, viable and united State of Palestine within secure and recognized borders living side by side at peace with Israel as endorsed in the Roadmap and UNSC Resolutions 1397 & 1515. India has supported the Quartet Roadmap of 2003 and the Arab Peace Initiative, resumption of dialogue on Israel-Lebanon and Israel-Syria Tracks and believes that these have to be addressed in efforts to establish comprehensive and durable peace in the region.
• India’s support to the Palestinian cause has not wavered. India recognized the PLO as a representative of the Palestinian people in 1975 and was one of the first countries to recognize the State of Palestine in 1988.
• EAM also touched upon the significant humanitarian contribution that India has made to the Palestinian people who are coping with multiple challenges. Together with the Palestine National Authority, India is working on several development projects, including a cardiac hospital in Gaza, a school in Abu Dis and an IT Centre at the Al Quds University. India has also rushed life-saving drugs for Palestinian civilians affected by the conflict. In consultation with the Lebanese government, India is working to assist the Palestinian refugees at the Nahr al -Bared Camp in North Lebanon.
• EAM informed the Members that on 27th November at Annapolis Conference, India applauded the Joint Understanding reached by the President of Palestine Mr. Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister of Israel Mr. Ehud Olmert to launch vigorous, ongoing and continuing bilateral negotiations over the coming weeks and months to arrive at a negotiated solution of the core issues that will lead to the establishment of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian State, living side by side in mutual peace and prosperity with the State of Israel.
• EAM also informed the Members that Shri E. Ahamed, Minister of State for External Affairs would attend the International Donors Conference for Palestine being held in Paris on December 17.
(Source: Strategic Digest)

Not with Fatah alone
Editorial, Asian Affairs, London, July, 2007
Arab-Israel conflict of the 70s, thirty years down the line has tapered down to Palestinian-Israel conflict, with neighboring Arab states of Egypt and Jordan having found peace with the Jewish state. If a liberation movement lingers on for as many years with no resolution in sight there has to be a solid reason for such a sustained stalemate. Is it Israeli reluctance to reach a conclusive peace deal with Palestine knowing fully well that such a deal would entail parting with East Jerusalem, allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their original homeland, apart from vacating all settlements on occupied land? Or is it Palestinian refusal to accept the reality of a Jewish state on ‘their land’?
In the broad agreement on a two-state solution, ended in a renewed surge of violence, with ‘stone throwing’ Palestinians largely at the receiving end. In retaliation, Palestinians have carried out horrid suicide bombings killing hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians over the years. So where does it all lead to? The mainstream in Israel has come to terms with a broad acceptance of Palestinian statehood. Likewise, moderate Palestinians too have accepted the Israeli reality. If two states, for two people, existing side-by-side in peace, is the mandate of the majority where does the problem lie? If Palestinian hardliners were the problem, they too have been by and large quarantined, in Gaza last month. The militant Islamist Palestinian faction Hamas, which refutes the existence of Israel and supports suicide bombings, drove the moderate Fatah faction of Mahmoud Abbas (who inherited the mantle from Yasser Arafat) out of Gaza and is in control of the tiny territory on the Mediterranean coast. As of today the two Palestinaian territories of Gaza and the West Bank are effectively divided between Hamas and Fatah respectively; and Hamas stands isolated in the international community.
Abbas is hoping Israel will grant concessions in quick time, which will boost his standing on the Palestinian street and strengthen his hand against Hamas. Apart from tax dollars he also seeks military equipment. Israel, which wants Abbas to crack down on hardliners in West Bank, showed a gesture of goodwill’ by agreeing to release 250 Fatah prisoners. Apart from U.S., Israel and European Union, Egypt and Jordan too are supporting Abbas.
But if these supporting parties believe that henceforth Israel can live in peace with a propped-up Fatah in West Bank, and an isolated Hamas in Gaza can be further hemmed in militarily, their optimism may be misplaced. To begin with, the more generosity the West showers on Abbas, the more his credibility will take a beating. Also, as Rupert Fisher writes : ‘ Hamas still enjoys the sympathy of many Palestinians in West Bank Witness how the majority (in West Bank) have yet to come out in public to pledge their allegiance to Fatah in its war with Hamas. And if they don’t the West-backed Israeli and Fatah campaign against Hamas is likely to backfire.’
It’s a fact that Fatah lost much support in Palestinian territories because of corruption and inefficiency in its ranks and because it failed to improve the lot of its people. Hamas, on the other hand, is a popular movement, largely because it offers Islam as the solution to a poor people but also because it promises a clean administration and is known to deliver goods. Fouad Ajami, professor at john Hopkins promises a clean administration and is known to deliver goods. Fouad Ajami, professor at John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, writes, ‘It is not a pretty choice, that between Hamas and Fatah. Indeed, it was the reign of plunder and arrogance the Fatah imposed during its years of primacy that gave Hamas its power and room for manoeuvre…. There is no way that a normal world could be had in the West Bank while Gaza goes under. ‘Indeed, the 1.5 million people of Gaza, living out their lives in squalor and misery, cannot be allowed to be permanently isolated or ‘go under’ by the international community. Hamas is now a reality and cannot be wished away. Eventually, the resolution of the Palestinian – Israeli conflict will have to be found in and inclusive way.


CHRONOLOGY
Monthly Chronology of Events of Concern
( 1-31 January, 2008 )
1. National Developments:
NP-NDA/BJP: *NDA decides to contest 2009 poll with a common strategy and common programme under Advani’s leadership who emerges as PM-in-waiting. * BJP National Council decides not to raise questions of Ram Mandir, Uniform Civil Code or Article 370 but to adopt new issues like Ram Setu, Afzal Guru’s hanging and appeasement of Muslim by the UPA. Modi shares limelight with Advani and Rajnath Singh who calls upon other BJP Chief Ministers to follow Gujarat model.* Advani decides to launch Sankalp Yatra from 6 February to touch more than 350 district. * BJP supports Election Commission’s proposal of 1/3 reservation for women in allotment of party tickets * Muslim organizations protest against BJP leader Naqvi comparing Maulana Mohammad Ali with Osama bin Laden.
NP-Sangh Parivar: * Rss rally in Satna displays fire-arms for the first time to overawe spectators ( 29 January).* Newly elected BJP government in Himachal Pradesh lifts ban on holding of Shakhas in public premises.* Madhya Pradesh introduces Surya Namaskar in government schools.* ABVP activists beat up college principal in Ujjain for refusal to allow examinees to copy from text books.
NP-INC : *Congress suspends ex-CM, Haryana, Bhajan Lal.* Builds up Rahul Gandhi as national leader.
NP-CPI(M) : * Organises minority convention in west Bengal with resolutions repeating old promises.* CPI (M)’s women wing AIDWA organizes human chain in Delhi to mark Gandhiji’s martyrdom and to uphold communal harmony.
NP-BSP: Mayawati accuses Congress of trying to kill her by refusing SPG cover and threatens to withdraw support from UPA government, Centre rubbishes charge.
* Three sitting BSP MPs including Shahid Akhlaque (Meerut) disqualified by Speaker for defection (29 January)
NP-SP : * SP protests against UP decision to ban University Union elections.CM accuses SP of disrupting law & order and arrests top leaders for political violence.
* Expels MP Atiq Ahmad absconding in alleged murder case.
*Supports formation of UNPA by SP,TDP, National Conference and INLD as third alternative, other than UPA and NDA.
NP-Shiv Sena : * Launches campaign against Biharis and other North Indians in Mumbai.*On 81 birthday Bal Thackeray threatens Muslims with violence and riots (25 January).
Constitution : * Supreme Court rejects petition for deletion of word “ Socialist” from the Preamble.* Darul Uloom, Deoband, endorses government decision for unfurling national flag in minority educational institutions on national day.*Maharashtra government considers compulsory singing of Vande Mataram in all schools.
* Government withholds award of Bharat Ratna in view of multiple claims from various political parties.
Judiciary : * Confirmation of one additional judge of High Court by Chief Justice without consulting collegium challenged. Law Minister supports CJI’s primacy (16Jan)
Delimitation : * Delimitation proposal approved by the cabinet. However, notification delayed (7 January )
Ram Setu Project : * Government appears hesitant because of Sangh Parivar’s objection, seeks time to file revised affidavit on project, despite lack of evidence, archaeological or scientific for any man-made structure.
Kashmir Situation : * PDP objects to government’s comparison of state with North Waziristan in Pakistan for posting of Central forces.
* Shabbir Shah rejoins Hurriyat * Hurriyat indicates possibility of taking part in next Assmbly election.
Small States : * UP Government as well as state Congress seek creation of Budelkhand (15 January ). However, Pranab Mukherjee rules out setting up a second SRC.
Corruption : * Delhi High Court refuses to stay criminal proceedings against former BJP president Bangaru Laxman.
Republic Day: * French President Sarkozy is Chief Guest on 2008 Republic Day. Signs agreement on nuclear co-operation. Supports India-US nuclear deal and permanent seat for India in Security Council.
NRI Convention : *Sixth NRI/PIO Convention held in New Delhi with Mauritius PM as Chief Guest. 2 Muslim NRI’s in Gulf honoured.
II. Other Matters of Concern and Interest to Muslims :
Minority Uplift : * Cabinet approves scheme of 25 lakh pre-matric scholarships for minority students at estimated cost of nearly Rs.18000 crores during Five Year Plan.
*National Committee for Monitoring Minority Education proposes recognition of Madrasa certificates.
* Education Ministry plans to open 100 new colleges and polytechnics in Muslim concentration districts.
* BJP opposes allocation of development funds ‘exclusively’ for minorities as ‘communal budgeting’ (21 January).* Shiv Sena attacks Sachar Report for proposing communal selection in police and army.
Reservation : * Supreme Court asks centre to clarify position on inclusion of Muslim & Christian Dalits in SC List.
* Protest in Karnataka against recruitment of non-Kannadigas against railway vacancies.
* Tamil Nadu justifies 69% quota for OBCs before Supreme Court.
*Home Minister Patil hints at reservation for minorities in public recruitment, Education Minister Arjun Singh denies any such proposal before government.
* Rajasthan Government transmits Chopra Committee Report on Gujjars‘ demand for recognition as ST to Centre, suggests nomadic tribe status and special quota. Rajasthan asked to make clear recommendation based on existing criteria.
Babri Masjid : * Muslim side continues argument in title case, challenges veracity of evidence from Hindu side.
* Former Home Secretary, Madhav Gohole attributes demolition to late P.M. Narasimha Rao’s political weakness.
* Supreme Court grants time to defendants for filing counter-affidavit in case filed against substitution by CBI of original charge-sheet by a supplementary in 2003 against BJP-VHP leaders.
Language Census: * Linguistic data finally published in December 2007 show Assamese as a minority language in Assam, though the most widely spoken.
* Urdu slips to 6th place.
III. Terrorism and Violence:
Terrorism: *Militants raid CRPF camp in Rampur, 8 killed. * HUJI militant Bashir Ahmad Mir accused of masterminding blasts in UP Courts reported killed in Kashmir.
*Supreme Court stays execution of death sentences against Yakub Menon in 1993 Bomb Blast case.
* LeT activist Tarique and four associates for Diwali blasts in Delhi in October, 2005 produced in Special Court which orders clubbing of cases and framing of charges.
* Aftab Alam arrested by UP police in Kolkata released as innocent..
Police Firing in Assam : * Police firing in Goalpara, on protesters against postponement of Panchayat elections kills 7. Government orders judicial inquiry and sanctions ex-gratia grant of Rs.3 lakhs to net of kin.
Nandigram Violence : * Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call for independent inquiry.
Anti-Christian Violence :* Large scale anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal, Orissa, seen as part of RSS-VHPcommunal offensive, condemned by the National Commission of Minorities as pre-planned.
Gujarat Genocide : * Special Court in Mumbai sentences 11 convicts in Bilkis Bano case to life imprisonment. Mass media gives full credit to Bilkis and her husband.
Communal Violence : *Stray violence against Muslims on Id-ul-Azha and Moharram in Chittorgarh, Baroda and Ahmedabad. No fatal casualties reported.
* Maharashtra indicates to Supreme Court disinclination to reopen cases against Shiv Sena leaders including Thackeray.
Sectarian & Caste Violence : * Shia-Sunni clashes occur in Srinagar.*Violence between Pathans and Quraishi in Muzafarnagar.
IV. Religious Questions :
Taslima Nasrin Case : * Central government extends Taslima Nasrin’s visa for six months from February 17. Extension condemned by JUH and other Muslim organizations. Taslima renews application for residence permit.
* Muslim activist including political workers protest in Mumbai against Sulman Rushdie’s vist as guest of Godrej family and appeal to Muslim to boycott Godrej products.
Haj :* SC extends stay on HC order on Haj Subsidy * 227 Indian pilgrims die during Haj 2008. Pilgrims complain about deficiency in Haj service particularly distant accommodation in Mecca and delay in transportation of Zam Zam.
Personal Law :* Family Court in Chennai grants divorce to Muslim couple by mutual consent.*Darul Uloom, Deoband and Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind support use of contraceptive to phase child births.
*SC presumes valid marriage in case of long cohabitation.
*Government Committee decides to have common definition for ‘child’ in all laws.* Delhi introduces compulsory registration of marriages.
V. Education and Cultural Affairs :
AMU : * Decides to establish four study and entrance test centres in Bhopal, Kozhikode, Kolkata and Pune. Establishes a Directorate for Schools. Decides to award honorary doctorates to ex-president Abdul Kalam, Ratan Tata, Azim Premji and scientist Swaminathan at 2008 Convocation.
Jama Masjid : * Jama Masjid Redevelopment Plan criticized by local community and challenged in Delhi HC. Plan ignores reconstruction of Akbarabadi Masjid and omits demolition of illegal additions within Jama Masjid campus.
Revision of Textbooks :* NCERT agree to remove objectionable material from history textbooks of class IX to XII.
VI.Muslim World :
Pakistan: *Scotland Yard team probes Benazir’s assassination, while PPP and other parties insist on UN investigation. * Two teenagers held for killing, identify Bhutto’s assassins.
*Another bomb blast in Lahore kills 24, injures 70, most of them policeman. *Students hostage crisis resolved (28 January).
Palestine: *President Bush visits Israel, also meets Palestine Authority chief Abbas, advises both sides to reach framework agreement, without success.
* Muslim organizations demand lifting of seige by Israel against Gaza, hold dharna in Delhi. CPI(M) and Congress also flay Gaza blockade.
*CPI (M) charges UPA with collaboration with Israel and military assistance in launching space satellite to cover region.
*Palestine freedom fighter George Habbash, 80, passes away.
Malaysia: *Hindu rightist organization Hindraf vows to continue agitation. *Government offers token moves to win back Hindu community.
*Malaysia bans non-Muslims from using word “Allah” and introduces separate lines for man and women in super markets.
Turkey: *Ruling party decides to amend constitution, despite army’s opposition, to allow women to wear of head scarf.
Iraq: *Iraq legitimizse Saddam’s Bath Party. *Turkey bombs Kurdish areas.
Bangladesh: *Four Advisors of Bangladesh care-taker regime resign.
*Awami League leader Hasina Wajid faces prosecution for graft.
Afghanistan: *Court sentences local journalist to death for blasphemy
Saudi Arabia: *Faces high rate of divorce and suicide. Questioned by UN Committee on Human Rights for gender discrimination.
Iran: *Bahais in India seek government intervention for release of Bahais arrested.
Indonesia: *President Suharto in power between ‘67 & ‘98’ passes away at 86.
Belarus: *Journalist sentenced for 3 years for reprinting Danish cartoons on Holy Prophet.