Muslim India
MONTHLY JOURNAL OF REFERENCE, RESEARCH AND DOCUMENTATION
VOL. XXIV NO. 281CONTENTS NOVEMBER, 2007

 The Question Of Faith
 Praful Bidwai
            
CONTRARY to what much of the corporate media claim, it is not the Left, with its 59 members in the Lok Sabha, which wields an effective veto over important policies and decisions of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). That privilege belongs to two “cultural” organisations: the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
It is they who decided that the UPA’s original prime ministerial nominee (Sonia Gandhi) would not occupy that office in 2004. It is they who push the UPA “anti-terrorism” agenda in an Islamophobic direction and threaten to sabotage the peace process with Pakistan. Again, they alone can ensure that the government goes slow on implementing the Sachar Committee’s or the Srikrishna Commission’s recommendations.
Recently, the VHP laid down the line on what would happen to the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project if it interfered with Ram Sethu. All it took was a few VHP demonstrations on September 12 for the UPA to make a U-turn and withdraw the affidavit, filed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) before the Supreme Court, which holds that the sandbar structure is a geological, not man-made, formation.
At the political level, the VHP-RSS position was articulated, as always, by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), their parliamentary face, alter ego, and ventriloquist. Out came attack upon venomous attack on the ASI affidavit: Its denial of Rama’s existence constitutes “blasphemy” and an “insult to the Hindus”. As Advani claimed, “the government has sought to negate all that the Hindus consider sacred… and wounded the very idea of India”.
Since September 13, there has not been a squeak from the Congress or the UPA, barring the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), in defence of the affidavit or by way of a counter-attack on the BJP under whose leadership the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) originally approved the Sethusamudram project. Instead, UPA Ministers have been vying with one another to sing paeans to Rama and to the myth surrounding Ram Sethu.
The worst offender is Union Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj, who abjectly apologised and said: “Lord Rama is an integral part of Indian culture and ethos… and cannot be a matter of debate or litigation… His existence can’t be put to the test… The whole world exists because of Rama.” He melodramatically added: “Just as the Himalayas are the Himalayas, the Ganga is the Ganga, Rama is Rama… It’s a question of faith. There is no requirement of proof to establish something based on faith.”
His primary thrust was that if someone believes in the description of the Sethu and its provenance offered in the Ramayana or Tulasidas’ Ramacharitamanas, that belief must be respected as the basis on which to make decisions about development projects.
However, the ASI’s affidavit – actually limits itself to rejecting the claim that scriptures or mythological texts like the Ramayana constitute historical proof that Ram Sethu is a man-made structure. As historians go, the texts do not establish the existence of the “characters” they refer to. The ASI had no other way of countering the contentions of the pro-Hindutva petitioners based primarily on the Ramayana and Ramacharitamanas.
As the historian D.N. Jha argues, paragraphs 4-6 and 20-23 of the document, “which have been construed to belittle the importance of Ram in Indian culture and to question his existence/historicity, contain, in fact, the most sensible view based on the available evidence”. In a nutshell, they hold that mythological texts “cannot be said to be a historical record to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters or the occurrence of the events depicted therein.” Contrary to the spin put on it by the media, the affidavit is deferential to the texts: “The ASI is aware of and duly respects the deep religious importance bestowed upon these texts by the Hindu community across the globe….” Yet, “the study of human history, which is the primary object of the ASI… must be carried out in a scientific manner, using available technological aids, and… tangible material evidence.”
The ASI then painstakingly shows that such evidence. Jha specifically argues that it would not have been enough for the ASI to say the Sethu “is not man-made” – full stop. That, he says, “would have been only a half-truth.
Hindutva fanatics chose to take offence not only because they have a purely literalist interpretation of mythological texts but also because they believe that “Hindu sensibilities”, “concerns” and “sentiments” must be accorded special respect in India because Hindus form a majority of its population. This proposition flagrantly violates the constitutional imperative of secularism, which requires that we attempt a basic separation of religion from politics, and more narrowly, that we do not favour or privilege one religion over any other. Yet, the UPA and a host of media commentators have granted legitimacy to this obnoxious proposition, which is profoundly undemocratic, being founded on the doctrine of majoritarianism.
Democracy in some sense is the opposite of majoritarianism because it recognises and respects minority rights and defends numerically small ethnic and religious groups against the tyranny of the majority. That is why democracies codify fundamental rights, systems of legal protection, and conventions and norms – and not just accept political representation decided by majority vote.
The likes of Advani charge that through the ASI affidavit, the UPA has “wounded the very idea of India”. This is based on the view that the true and authentic idea of India must be a Hindu one. Real secularism, as opposed to “pseudo- secularism”, cannot be irreligious, or apathetic or hostile to Hinduism – because India is quintessentially Hindu.
This blatantly denies India’s pluralism and richness as a diverse, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious society. It negates not just India’s present, but its past. Different religions and faiths, as well as non-religious belief systems, have flourished in India for 2,000 years. Hinduism as we know it today is only one of them.
No secular democracy can exclude or marginalise faiths other than the majority’s. By handing over an easy victory to Hindu majoritarianism without even putting up a fight, the UPA has done just that.
(Source: Frontline, October 5, 2007)
Indian Secularism is ‘Anti-Hindu Insensitive, & Fraudulent
KPS Gill, former DGP, Punjab
The political discourse has become surprisingly polarized in this country, and entirely unnecessary and extraneous controversies are being generated by an intellectually bankrupt national leadership.
It is incomprehensible how such perverse nonsense relating to the controversy on Ram Setu could have entered a supposedly secular Government’s representation before the Supreme Court of India. The Government has, of course, recanted and sought to distance itself from the contents of the affidavit, but this is far from enough. Someone must have drafted this document; someone would have approved and signed it. This is not something that can simply be pinned on to some minion in the Archaeological Survey of India. The Ram Setu issue has been a prominent political and public controversy for several months now, and it is impossible that a critical affidavit in this regard would not have the explicit assent of the political executive at the highest level; and, in the remote possibility that this is actually the case, the dereliction at senior levels of Government is unforgivable.
The individuals concerned at every level of the drafting and approval of this pernicious affidavit need to be clearly and publicly identified and penalised for causing unnecessary offence to Hindus - the majority community in this country, and, indeed, to many non-Hindus who share in the vibrant collective and cultural consciousness of India’s variegated civilisation.
There is a new and escalating insensitivity in Indian secular thought, which not only insistently neglects the sensibilities of the majority community, but, worse, appears eager to cause injury to such sentiments. India’s opportunistic political secularists - as distinct from those who are, in fact and practice, actually wedded to the secular ideology - feel that they cannot sufficiently proclaim their secularism without displaying at least a measure of contempt for Hindu beliefs and practices.
By contrast, the most extraordinary sensitivity - often transgressing not only the limits of good sense, but even considerations of national interest - is prominently displayed towards the Muslim minority. These tendencies appear to be getting worse with the passage of time, and a precipitous decline in the quality of political debate and intelligence is manifest.
These tendencies are, nevertheless, deep rooted in Indian - and particularly Congress - politics, and the tallest of our leaders have not escaped susceptibility to this perversity of perspective.
The problem with the current controversy goes beyond this, to the way in which we view science itself. The Archaeological Survey of India, in its affidavit to the Supreme Court, has asserted that there “was no historical and scientific evidence to establish the existence of Lord Ram or the other characters in Ramayan”. But to conclude from this lack of evidence that Lord Ram did not exist, and that the whole of Ramayan is no more than a religious myth, exceeds the scope of the evidence (or lack thereof).
The inability to prove, on scientific criteria, the existence of a particular individual or entity does not amount to a proof of the non-existence of such an individual or entity.
The Ram Setu issue, moreover, goes beyond science, to the very heart of faith and of the collective consciousness of a nation - and these considerations cannot be irrelevant to a legal determination of the issue. The greatest caution must be exercised when intervening in these issues.
The legend of Ram and Ramayan - archaeological evidence or no archaeological evidence - has primal resonances in the civilisation, culture and multiple identities, not only of India and among Hindus, but among the people of the entire South and South-East Asian region, and occasionally well beyond. These are embedded in the consciousness of millions across India and beyond, and to trivialise this is to misunderstand the very nature of governance.
There is an increasing fraud and dishonesty at the core of the Indian secular establishment. Secularism means, at once, a distancing of the institutions of governance from religious influence, but also sensitivity towards all religions and faiths.
(Source: The Pinoeer under Samachar.com, 8 October, 2007)

NATIONAL POLITICS-SMALL STATES
Divide and Rule
Editorial ,The Times of India, Oct 11, 2007
eMayawati’s call to divide UP into three states is apt. Uttar Pradesh is a monster state with a population of 166 million. That’s more than half the population of the US and 70 million more than Maharashtra, the second most populous state in India. UP is not just one of the least developed states in the country, it is also the most crime prone and one reason for the abysmal state of governance in UP is its unmanageable size. Unlike states formed on a linguistic basis, various regions were fused to form this unwieldy administrative unit.
Why not now divide it into three or four smaller states of the size of Uttarakhand, which was carved out of UP in 2000? The division could be along the following lines: Harit Pradesh comprising western districts of UP, Purvanchal in the east, Awadh and Bundelkhand. Hopefully, such a division will raise the quality of governance and better use of economic resources in each of these regions, which are quite distinct from one another.
The reasoning for smaller states holds true for other parts of India as well. Popular movements are on in Andhra Pradesh, and to some extent in Maharashtra, for separate Telangana and Vidarbha states. Congress, which allied with TRS, has promised a second states’ reorganisation commission to study the demands for separate states.
The first states’ reorganisation commission submitted its report in 1955 and endorsed the demand for language-based states. Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, besides many others, were constituted accordingly while different administrative units of British India and the princely states were merged and reshaped to form states. Economic factors now seem to override issues of linguistic identity in several areas of the country. That’s understandable. Vidarbha and Telangana are less developed when compared to neighbouring areas. So is the case with most of UP, barring parts of western UP.
India’s experience with small states has by and large been positive. Even the laggards have fared well in comparison with their mother states. So, why not increase the number of states in the Indian union from the present 28? Remember, the US with less than one-third of India’s population has 50 states. What could upset a new round of states’ reorganisation is a lack of consensus among political parties on the issue. But, to start with, Centre should seriously consider Mayawati’s proposal to trifurcate the mammoth state of UP.

For Small States
Editorial Indian Express, 11 October, 2007
The UP chief minister has said that she would support the trifurcation of her state, heeding long-held demands for Harit Pradesh in the west and Purvanchal in the east. Mayawati’s BSP achieved a historic majority in the recent state assembly elections based on her winnability factor across UP. It conveys, in the first instance, her confidence that she can gain the sub-regional loyalties that could crystallise in individual entities in a trifurcated UP. But we welcome her statement for the promise of reform it carries.
Politics apart, the unwieldiness and ungovernability of UP is very unsettling in today’s India, in which federalism has gained a deep and meaningful economic hue. States today no longer meet the social and economic aspirations of their people through handouts from the Centre. For resources and for planning, they are more self-reliant. State reorganisation is in need of an updated paradigm. Many aspirations for separate statehood are not so strongly driven by ethnicity or language. The demands are more on geographical considerations. And these demands are far-flung, from a demand for Telangana to be carved out of Andhra, a Vidarbha out of Maharashtra, a Bundelkhand out of MP, and a Koshala out of Orissa.
In taking a composite view, the Centre must place greatest store by governability. And UP should be a special case and put on the fast track. Because its expanse makes it incongruous amongst states in hectic competition with each other.
Arguments are routinely made for and against small states, and there is enough experience to show for either side. But, for UP the deal should be clinched by the simple fact that political leaderships and administrations in smaller daughter states would be more easily made accountable.

NATIONAL POLITICS-GUJARAT ELECTION
The Muslim Question in Gujarat, 2007
An Unspoken consensus Excludes Muslims from Election Debate
Vidya Subrahmaniam, Well-known Columnist
The 2007 election in Gujarat is what psephologists would call a “normal” election, unattended by passion, and without an overarching issue. Yet this normal election seems no less contemptuous of a community that forms over nine per cent of the State’s population. In 2002, the debate targeted Muslims. In 2007, the debate has bypassed Muslims. The community has been kept out of the discourse by an unspoken consensus that includes Mr. Modi, the Congress and the anti-Modi dissidents.
Mr. Modi describes Gujarat ki seva, seva, seva (service, service and service of Gujarat) as his single mission.
Yet the Chief Minister turns hostile on the question of Muslims. Asked where Muslims figured in his vision of Gujarat, he flared up: “I don’t like this thinking. I work for five-and-a-half crore Gujaratis. For me, anyone who lives here is a Gujarati, and I will not allow politics to come into this.”
If only this were true. In Vadodara, Professor Ganesh Devy, literary critic, activist and director of the Tribal Academy at Tejgadh, took me on a tour of Tandalja and Vasna Road, two parallel streets only six metres apart. The first was a mostly Muslim area, the second housed Hindus. The contrast wrenched the heart. Mounds of rotting garbage, dark, damp, crowded homes, and desolate young men standing in groups made the Muslim part instantly recognisable. The brightness of Vasna Road equally identified it as a Hindu area. The divide is as much physical as mental — and as much in Vadodara as in other Gujarat cities. It is a symbol of complete, absolute Muslim isolation in the State.
It is perhaps a consolation that unhygienic and wretched as their living conditions are, these Muslims at least live in their own homes. There are many who don’t. In October 2006, the National Commission for Minorities reported that over 5000 displaced Muslim families lived in “sub-human conditions” in 46 makeshift colonies spread across the riot-affected districts of Gujarat.
The NCM team, which visited 17 camps, accused the Gujarat Government of refusing to fulfil “its constitutional responsibility.” It also contradicted the Chief Minister’s claim that the families had opted to live there: “In view of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Commission finds this viewpoint untenable and evasive of a government’s basic responsibility.” The team’s findings brought help to the displaced families — but from the Central Government which announced a compensation package.
However, to blame Mr. Modi alone for the social and political exclusion of Muslims would be to turn away from a truth that involves a much wider spectrum. Gordhan Zadaphia, the Home Minister who stood by Mr. Modi during the 2002 pogrom told The Indian Express that while he accepted moral responsibility for the 2002 violence, that was not why he turned critical of Mr. Modi. “What happened in 2002 was different”, he said, tracing his revolt to the government’s indifference to the “issues of poor people, farmers and rural folks.” No mention of Muslims.
The main complaint aired from the Rajkot platform was that Mr. Modi had deserted his Hindutva roots. The BJP dissidents turned on Mr. Modi for forsaking the agenda that brought him to power. They accused him of betraying the Hindu community on Ayodhya and warned him not to raise the Ramar Sethu issue: “Don’t you dare talk of Ram Sethu, Modi.” After the meet, I spoke to some of the rebels. Their unanimous verdict: Mr. Modi could no longer lay claim to the title ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat.’
The Congress has not ridiculed itself to this extent. But its leaders seem convinced that to talk secularism in Gujarat is to commit suicide. Asked why the Congress associated with men like Mr. Zadaphia who were identified with the 2002 violence, Shankarsinh Waghela argued that the Congress was a ‘samudra’ (sea) that absorbed all ideologies. Other Congress leaders said they did not want to dilute the anti-Modi movement by raising the Muslim issue.
A veteran of many elections put it this way: In Gujarat, there are two currents of opinion. One is against Muslims, the other against Mr. Modi. If the first were raised, Mr. Modi would revert to his post-Godhra violent image which would compel Gujaratis to side with him against a “much worse” enemy. The most secular among Congresspersons buy this theory. Their case: the ideological compromises are necessary to win this do-or-die election.
The KHAM formula
It is a sad state of affairs in a party that in the late 1970s crafted the ingenious KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) formula. KHAM brought the depressed, marginalised classes on one platform and delivered stunning results for the Gujarat Congress. In 1980, it won 141 out of the 182 Assembly seats, and in 1985 it bettered the record with 149 seats. The Congress achieved its majorities — far larger than what Mr. Modi secured in 2002 — by mobilising the lowest in the social order. KHAM was more than an electoral strategy. It was a daring effort to empower the historically subjugated classes.
Using the proxy of Hindu unity, the BJP and the sangh parivar targeted the KHAM communities, enticing Kolis, Dalits and Advasis into joining their majoritarian project.
The Congress helplessly watched as Hindutva forces penetrated the Adivasi areas of central and east Gujarat. The cultural indoctrination focussed on showing up the tribal culture, including their forms of worship, as inferior. Tribal villagers were visited by various Hindu sects. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad distributed Ganesh and Ram idols in the villages, because of which today Ram is a recognised name among tribals. Yet the political influence of Hindutva remained limited in the tribal belt.
In 2002, this barrier too was breached with the co-option of tribals into the anti-Muslim pogrom. This was not voluntary, and as Professor Devy pointed out in his essay, “Tribal voice and violence” (Seminar, issue 513), the Rathwa tribals in Tejgadh and Panval were uninfluenced by the communal argument. So the arsonists pushed the commercial angle with the focus on Muslim moneylenders. Today, there is regret in these areas for the 2002 aberration.
Whether the Congress will benefit from this is anybody’s guess. Because in 2007, the authors of KHAM are in league with the destroyers of KHAM. What place can Adivasis and Muslims claim in a party that is firing at Mr. Modi from the shoulder of his more Hindutva opponents?
(Source: The Hindu, 9 October, 2007)

GUJARAT GENOCIDE
Murderers on Camera
Vir Sanghvi, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindustan Times
Some of my liberal friends were outraged when Modi was invited to speak at the HT Summit, I actually looked forward to his speech.
In the event, Modi’s speech was a triumph. He is a first rate orator, knows when to switch gears from emotion to reason, and is brilliant at playing to the gallery.
The problems began during the Q&A session. Rajdeep Sardesai, the moderator, started gently, trying to draw Modi out on his role during the Gujarat riots. At first, Modi was dismissive but as Rajdeep’s questions grew sharper, his irritation began to show.
Modi looked a little put out but not entirely surprised. But then, to his horror, nearly every single question from the audience focused on his role in the riots.
As the questions kept coming — and as Rajdeep kept up the pressure — the eloquent Modi, who had made such a great speech at the beginning, vanished. In his place, a petty, arrogant man emerged. Not only did he insult those who dared ask probing questions, he repeatedly passed up the many opportunities he was offered to declare that mistakes had occurred during the riots or to state that he had nothing against Muslims. Instead he took the line that as he’d won the election that followed the riots, he had been vindicated by the people of Gujarat.
I’m not a great fan of sting operations but even so, it was nearly impossible to watch the boasts of the Sangh Parivar activists who had been captured on secret cameras, without wanting to throw up. How could any man talk about ripping open the womb of a pregnant Muslim woman and pulling out her unborn foetus? What about the goon who bragged about raping a Muslim woman who was “like a flower”?
Most horrific of all was the saga of the slaughter of Ehsan Jaffri. His murderer told the hidden camera how Jaffri had offered the mob money to protect the poor Muslims who had taken shelter in his house. We took the money, the man said, and then we attacked him. They cut his arms off with swords. Then they mutilated his genitals. And finally, they burnt him alive.
One man said that Modi hid him in Gujarat Bhavan in Mount Abu for four-and-a-half months to escape the law, in the aftermath of the riots. Another said that Modi told the rioters they had three days to take revenge on Muslims. A lawyer, attached to the commission investigating the riots, explained how he was trying to get the accused off. There were suggestions that Modi had manipulated the judicial process, changing judges till one of the key accused could be set free on bail. The police, we were informed, had been asked to lay off.
I do not claim that all these charges are valid. It is possible that some of these men made empty boasts. And the allegations about Modi’s involvement are unproven till he has had a chance to defend himself (or to change judges again).
But the footage made my stomach churn. Were these people human? Could the Sangh Parivar really have allowed them to flourish within its ranks?
It is foolish to pretend that the BJP is the first national party to sponsor a massacre. It is clear that Congressmen participated in the 1984 Delhi riots. Bal Thackeray has openly taken credit for the Shiv Sena’s role in the Bombay riots (“My boys took revenge”).
But there are differences. The Shiv Sena is not a national party and Bal Thackeray does not want to become Prime Minister. The Congress erred badly in the immediate aftermath of the riots but, then, moved to heal communal divides, winning back the confidence of the Sikhs and even coming to power in Punjab with Sikh chief ministers. The political careers of those involved in the riots suffered.
But that’s not true of Gujarat. Modi is not interested in healing any wounds, admitting to any mistakes or punishing the guilty. He has worked out that there are more Hindus than there are Muslims in Gujarat and as long as he can vitiate the atmosphere and consolidate the Hindu vote, he doesn’t need to worry about minorities or social justice.
Most disappointing of all is the behaviour of his BJP colleagues, many of them otherwise decent men. AB Vajpayee’s prime ministership will forever be blotted by his failure to sack Modi. The BJP spokesmen have cut pathetic figures on TV. How do they explain the things we hear on the tapes? None of them has an answer.
Finally, there’s the question of the future of the BJP itself. My guess is that Modi will win the Gujarat election.
Does that mean that the party will turn a blind eye to these revelations and to his record as a mass-murderer on the grounds that he can win votes by dividing communities?
I have a terrible feeling that this is exactly what the BJP will do. And as Modi climbs the political ladder, India will pay the price.
(Source: Hindusatan Times, 28 October, 2007)
 

NATIONAL POLITICS-GUJARAT ELECTION
Gujarat: Dalit-Muslim Unity versus Hindutva
Yoginder Sikand

‘Modi Sahib has wrought a revolution in Gujarat’. ‘We now have regular electricity for our industries, new superhighways and massive shopping malls’, he went on excitedly. ‘Modi ji isÿ the saviour of the Hindus of Gujarat. He taught the bloody Muslims a lesson in 2002 and now they dare not raise their heads’.
Public opposition to Modi and to the Hindutva lobby is muted, not just because of fear but also because the claims of the Hindutva forces have become received truths for many Gujarati Hindus, thanks to years of carefully-planned indoctrination. The BJP and allied Hindutva fronts have made deep inroads among sections of communities such as Dalits and Adivasis, who form a large chunk of Gujarat’s ‘Hindu’ population, who were traditionally opposed to the ‘upper-caste-controlled Hindutva groups and were once earlier strong Congress vote-banks.
‘The Congress is totally ineffective as an opposition force in Gujarat’, says Raju Solanki, a well-known Dalit activist, who works with the Centre for Social Justice in Ahmedabad. ‘In the last six decades, the Congress did precious little for the Dalits and Adivasis besides taking their votes and so the BJP has taken over. There’s no difference, as far as Dalits and Adivasis are concerned, between the two-they both represent broadly the same dominant caste-class groups. Hinduvta fronts are desperately trying to Hinduise the Dalits and Adivasis, to use them as foot-soldiers against the Muslims, setting them against each other so that ‘upper’ caste rule remains unchallenged’, he argues.
Unity between Dalits, Backward Castes, Adivasis and Muslims, who together form the overwhelming majority of Gujarat’s population, is the only way to challenge the BJP and the Congress, Solanki says. Yet, he laments, hardly any efforts are being made in this regard. In the wake of the state-sponsored anti-Muslim genocide in 2002, scores of NGOs entered Gujarat to provide relief, but today, he says, few of them are involved in anti-communal work. ‘Many of them made tall promises of working for empowerment, for Dalit-Muslim unity, for taking on the Hindutva lobby and so on. They got lots of money to fund big projects but nothing much has come of this’. ‘And then there are so many stories of corruption in the NGO circuit’, he wryly adds. ‘And so’, he goes on, ‘the only effective opposition I see today is within the BJP itself, among dissidents opposed to Modi’. ‘But that’, he explains, ‘in no way challenges the ideology and caste-base of Hindutva’.
Solanki speaks of how the focus solely on communalism in Gujarat has led to an obscuring in secular political discourse of the widespread oppression of Dalits and Adivasis in the state. ‘The secularists, self-proclaimed secularists such as the Congress, and the Hindutva lobby all focus only on the issue of Hindu-Muslim relations, thus effectively ignoring the Adivasis and Dalits’, he notes. ‘Of course we need to work for communal harmony, for the rights of the Muslims and Christians, but that must go along with strengthening of the struggles of the Adivasis and Dalits. Hindutva forces seek to whip up anti-Muslim sentiments precisely to sabotage the growing awareness of the Adivasis and Dalits about the oppression that they suffer at the hands of the caste Hindu establishment’. ‘Hence’, he insists, ‘communalism cannot be defeated without taking up the caste issue, without working to unite the oppressed castes and the Muslims at the political and social level against the system of caste-class oppression of which they are the common victims’. ‘We need to make Dalit and Adivasi issues, along with the plight of Muslims, the centre of a new social, cultural and political movement, which alone can challenge the ‘upper’ caste Hindu hegemony which both the BJP and the Congress represent and defend’, he tells me.
Solanki talks of the work of his Centre in taking up numerous cases related to these communities. He speaks of widespread discrimination being practiced against Dalits in Gujarat-for instance, in this state which the Hindutva lobby touts about as about as its most successful experimental ground, a veritable ‘Hindu Rashtra’, Dalits continue to be refused entry into temples in many villages. He cites figures about rape of Dalit and Adivasi women by ‘upper’ caste landlords, many of them firm BJP supporters; of increasing land alienation among these groups; of the squalid slums, deprived of even the most basic amenities, to which the ‘low’ castes have been confined in Gujarat’s towns; and of the rapid impoverishment of Dalits and Adivasis communities in the face of the government’s economic policies.
‘This is, of course, may be easier said than done’, says Raju Solanki, ‘but we have to make it our main focus. From ancient times to this day, ‘upper’ caste forces, including today the Congress and the Hindutva lobby, have used culture, including religion, to oppress us. We now must use those very tools to challenge our oppression’.
Solanki shows me a book he’s written celebrating a fellow Gujarati Dalit activist who recently died, who opposed the entry of Hindutva activists into his slum and also prevented attacks on Muslims in his locality. ‘I’m preparing a book about such unsung heroes’, he informs me. ‘These voices of resistance, be they of Adivasis, Muslims, Backward Castes or Dalits, have been deliberately invisibilised fromÿ our history by the Brahminical establishment’, he notes. ‘We need to retrieve their memory, and build up a culture of resistance based on this’.
Solanki reads to me from a booklet that he has just published, titled ‘Blood Under Saffron’, to make his point about the dire need for marginalised communities in Gujarat to join hands to counter caste Hindu chauvinism, of which he says they are fellow victims. The booklet speaks of Gujarat’s panchayat rules that specify that disposing off dead animals and unclaimed corpses is a responsibility particular to the Scheduled Castes, a continuation of Manu’s ancient code; of the deaths of numerous sweepers belonging to the ‘lowest’ castes from suffocation while cleaning manholes; of the continuing practice of Valmikis in Gujarat being forced to carry human excreta on their heads; of ‘upper’ castesÿ denying Dalits access to burial grounds; of mounting Dalit impoverishment, and, in the face of this, of continuing neglect by the state, and so on.
‘We need to bring the Dalits and other marginalized communities, besides the Muslims, back into Gujarat’s political discourse’, Solanki reiterates. ‘We need to shift the discourse from the secularism versus communalism debate to bring to the centre issues of caste-class domination and subjugation’, Solanki concludes. ‘Only then can Hindutva be effectively challenged.
(Source: The Kashmir Times, Jammu, 5 October, 2007)
 

NATIONAL POLITICS-RAM SETHU
Has BJP Found Another Emotive Issue in Ram Sethu?
Amulya Ganguli
The Bharatiya Janata Party must have realized by now that the Ram Sethu controversy will not be a rerun of the Ram temple issue of a decade-and-a-half ago which propelled the party from the margins of Indian politics to centre-stage. The reason is that there is no anti-Muslim angle in the Sethu dispute. As such, it will not be possible for the party to exploit communal sentiments, as it did in the 1990s, to build up political support.
In contrast, the BJP must have noted with dismay that there is a distinct possibility of the Sethu affair leading to Hindu vs Hindu clashes, as has already been evident in the attack on the Bangalore house of the daughter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, following the latter’s anti-Ram comments.
Any such development, reminiscent of caste conflicts, will be hugely damaging to all the parties involved. In the present instance, it is the BJP and the DMK, which have squared off for a fight over what many people will consider an esoteric issue.
It is perhaps to avoid such clashes – that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has intervened. The suggestion of this paterfamilias of the saffron brotherhood is to set up a panel – the Ramesswaram Ram Sethu Raksha Manch – to conduct a movement to ‘save’ the Sethu, thereby denying the BJP the leadership role. The move is in tune with the earlier exhortations by the VHP to the BJP not to politicize the dispute.
The decision of the RSS will partly check the BJP’s attempts to make political capital out of the issue – something which will not please Advani. The BJP’s enthusiasm is not shared by some of its allies. The Janata Dal-United (JD-U), for instance, which is in power in Bihar along with the BJP, has dismissed the subject as a non-issue.
This indifference of even the BJP’s partners is probably due to the perception that the repeated use of religious symbols to boost political prospects can breed cynicism even among their traditional supporters.
There is also a north-south divide on the subject, precluding the possibility of the Hindutva camp building up a national movement. If sections in the south are lukewarm about the issue, if not positively hostile, the reason is the tradition of anti-Brahmin and anti-north Indian stance, which the Dravidian parties have adopted to consolidate their mainly backward and lower caste support base. The DMK and some of its allies also like to project the Ram-Ravan war as a reflection of the Aryan vs Dravidian conflict following the ‘arrival’ of the Aryans in North India around 1500 BC.
It is evidently to highlight his difference from the AIADMK that Karunanidhi has been unusually aggressive in his refusal to accept Ram as a historical figure. It is a stance that will be endorsed by a wide section of historians.
The Manmohan Singh government and the Congress have been caught between the ‘rationality’ of the DMK and the Hindutva brigade’s emotive politics. They can neither be too critical of the DMK, which is a constituent of the ruling coalition nor reject BJP’s contention for fear of offending Hindu sentiments. The Congress also has to guard against such sentiments since its president, Sonia Gandhi, is an Italian by birth.
On the other hand, the Congress is also aware that the community of scientists and historians will be outraged if the party endorses the saffron brotherhood’s assertion that the 1.7 million-year-old ‘bridge’ is man-made – or monkey-made.

Left on “Ramsethu” Controversy
CPI’s Views: The statement about Ram, and the great epic Ramayan, and Ramcharit Manas, made in the affidavit filed by the ASI goes against the faith of the overwhelming mass of Indian people. It has hurt the sentiments of the people.
The Union government’s decision to withdraw these paragraphs of the affidavit is quite appropriate.
At the same time it is right and proper to state that there is no scientific evidence of a man-made structure in the Palk Strait between India and Lanka. These are natural formations over the millennia.
CPI(M)’s Views: The government of India has taken an appropriate decision to withdraw certain paragraphs in the affidavit filed by the Archaeological Survey of India in the Supreme Court in the Sethusamudram case that were considered extraneous to the matter at hand.
That said, it must be reiterated that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that a manmade structure, the Adams bridge (or the Ram Setu) exists in the Palk Straits. What exist are natural formations.
(Source: New Age Weekly)
On Withdrawal of Affidavit on Ram Sethu
AIMMM’s Letter to Minister of Law, 14 Sept., 2007
We have nothing to say on the merits of the case but some remarks attributed to you in the press, affirming the ‘faith’ of the Indian state in the existence of Rama and his comparison to the Himalayas and the Ganges, raise certain questions which are the basic to the secular character of our state.
Indeed, it is illogical to compare Rama with the Himalaya or the Ganges. Ram may or may not have been a historic figure but the Himalayas and the Ganges exist and are verifiable facts. Moreover, Ram represents a moral ideal and in that sense he is indeed an integral part of our culture, but the question whether Ram, the son of Dasratha, ever lived and when and where he was born, are matters which are already subjudice. Your statement, unfortunately, comes very close to the basic doctrine of the Ram Janam Bhoomi Movement, which claims on the basis of faith that Ram was born at Aodhaya some hundreds of thousands of years ago. We request you to clarify that while personal ‘faith’ cannot be subject to litigation, it can neither serve as evidence in support of a claim against another person.
The controversy could have been avoided, had the ASI focussed only on the natural origin of what has been called Rama Sethu, without questioning the historicity of Ram or of the epic Ramayana.

RAM SETHU CONTROVERSY
Political Game over Ram Sethu
No Man Made Bridge but Natural Formation
Mohan Guruswamy

Former Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev once described politicians as people who will promise to build a bridge even where no river exists! Our politicians have gone one better. They are claiming the existence of a bridge where none exists. The bridge of course is the Ramar Setu, supposedly built by Rama, the exiled prince of Ayodhya, in his quest to defeat Ravana the king of Lanka. The scientific evidence available does not support this. The Geological Survey of India, after an in-depth study, concluded that far from being a manmade structure, the Ramar Setu is a natural formation that is over 175,000 years old.
Now not even Murli Manohar Joshi, the sometime physics professor and the BJP’s in-house expert on all science matters — be it Ganesha sipping milk or the original thermonuclear weapon, the Brahmastra — would claim that Rama existed well before the advent of the ice age which in turn preceded the migration of homosapiens from Africa. Realising that scientific evidence and reason do not support them, politicians seem to be saying that while that may be the reality, the truth is what we believe. This is irrational and steeped in unreason. From the drift of the government’s panicky and knee-jerk reaction, it seems that ‘believers’ have won the day.
Actually, there are two kinds of believers. One is the true believer. The world is full of them and their tribe keeps increasing. The second kind of believers and this is the more dangerous of the species, are the rational ones who believe that the masses are stupid and gullible and can be swayed by emotion into voting for them. LK Advani leads this pack in the BJP and considering the alacrity with which the government disowned its affidavit in the court, Manmohan Singh heads the pack in the Congress. Singh’s contribution to this theological debate was the comment that since the Guru Granth Sahib also referred to Rama, everything else attributed to him must also be true.
The real question at the hub of this matter is whether the Ramar Setu or Adams Bridge, be it the 175,000 plus years old natural geological formation or a bridge built by Rama, can be cut through to facilitate a project that has immense economic promise. The Ramar Setu is over 30 km long and the Sethusamudram canal only envisages a cut 300m wide. Ironically, the BJP seems to be saying that since it is manmade it must be respected as archeologically significant and hence not to be altered in any way. This is rich coming from a bunch of fellows who had few qualms over bringing down the Babri Masjid.
The UPA government’s original affidavit stated it to be what it actually is, a natural formation and not a creation of blind belief. Now the government has retracted that and has joined the Ram bandwagon. This is just a repeat of Rajiv Gandhi laying the shilanyas for a Ram janmabhoomi temple at Ayodhya in 1989 on the advice of the likes of Buta Singh. Now this government is acting on the advice of the likes of HD Bhardwaj.
Under any other dispensation, people like Buta Singh and Bhardwaj will be treated as jokes, but in the intellectually arid Congress only weeds thrive.
Our problems stem from our misunderstanding the notion of secularism. To be secular one has to be a skeptic and therefore rational and reasonable. If not in full measure then imbued with a great deal of it. A secular person is one who disregards all forms of organised religion invariably buttressed by a suitably created mythology replete with improbabilities. Merely to be silent on the unreason wrapped in ritual and ceremony that passes off as religion, or even to be fearful of criticising these lest we provoke irrational rage and violence, is not secularism.
It is the silence of the truly secular and rational that has allowed religious fanatics of all hues to seize the high ground from which the battle for our minds is being directed.
Perhaps our bloodied history and particularly the conflicts of the recent past have made us want to seek accommodation by mutual tolerance. This is understandable and perhaps even commendable. Nonetheless, given the propensity of militant religionists like the VHP to apply their doctrines to the political process and their constant endeavor to impose their views on others, not to challenge orthodox religiosity and fundamentalism would be a gross dereliction of our responsibilities.
Whether she saw the file or not, Ambika Soni did the right thing by permitting that affidavit and put the government’s imprimatur on what should be the true and rational position on the legend of Rama. I agree with Jairam Ramesh that she should have resigned, but not for allowing the affidavit to go through but as a protest against its withdrawal by a spooked Manmohan Singh. Jawaharlal Nehru or even Indira Gandhi would have never sacrificed core beliefs for such small and unprincipled political gains.
This fear of taking on religionists head on costs us much more than we allow. Already, the Sethusamudram project is overshooting earlier estimates, causing the lead banker to question its economic viability. Further delay will only add to the costs. This could have two implications. Obviously, usage charges will have to go up. The other alternative is to dredge a deeper channel to allow passage of bigger ships to bolster future revenues.
The nation faces thousands of such impediments to progress. The use of religion to threaten and intimidate has become a common practice.
Social reformer EV Ramaswamy Naicker used to celebrate ‘dusserah’ as a day of mourning and used to take out a procession of Rama with a garland of discarded footwear. That too at a time when C Rajagopalachari was the chief minister of Madras. Rajagopalachari is better known as the person who translated the Ramayana into English. Of course, he believed in Rama, but he believed even more in Naicker’s right to disbelieve. It’s in keeping with the shallow times we live in that Karunanidhi’s mocking of Rama must elicit an off-with-his-head response from a BJP leader. Now a group of Sinhalas have announced a plan to mourn the killing of Ravana by Rama. The politicians are once again busy building bridges. And as usual, they lead to nowhere.
(Source: Hardnews, October, 2007)

Three Questions on Affidavit Episode

Praful Bidwai
The retreat beaten by the United Progressive Alliance on the Ram Setu or Adam’s Bridge controversy pertaining to the Sethusamudram ship canal project will go down as one of the most embarrassing chapters of its tenure. Having told the Supreme Court through an affidavit filed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) that there is no clinching evidence to prove that the shoal/sandbar structure in the Palk Strait is man-made, it executed a 180 – degree turn as soon as it sensed that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bhartiya Janata Party might cynically exploit the issue by misconstruing the affidavit’s contents as an “insult to the Hindu community”.
Three conclusions follow. First, this episode demonstrates the UPA’s weak-kneed response to majoritarian communalism rather than the strength of the popular sentiment on the Ram Setu issue, which is, if anything, diffuse. The UPA simply didn’t have the stomach to assert the relevant scientific-historical arguments in self-defence. By caving in to the Parivar, it legitimised the communal claim that there’s an overwhelming “Hindu sentiment” on the Ram Setu.
In reality, the Hindus are an extraordinarily complex, large and diverse community. Hindu myths and legends about Rama and Ravana differ widely not just between the North and the South, but within the regions too. Any view that artificially homogenises this diversity distorts reality.
Indeed, it’s doubtful if many devout Hindus even know about the Setu — just as most of them probably hadn’t even heard of Ram Janmabhoomi until the Sangh Parivar launched its agitation after the Babri Masjid’s gates had been unlocked. In any case, one doesn’t have to believe in the Setu’s historicity to be a good Hindu.
Second, it’s simply false to argue that to be “authentic,” Indian secularism must be rooted in the culture of the religious majority, and that such culture must include myths and scriptures, while excluding archaeology, history and science.
Secularism involves the basic separation of religion and politics. In the Indian case, secularism derives as much from universal citizenship cutting across religious lines, as from the imperative of tolerance and inter-communal harmony.
Finally, by capitulating to the Parivar, the UPA has violated the Constitutional mandate to uphold secular values and not to privilege a particular religion or belief system. This mandate is part of the Basic Structure of the Indian Constitution. It dictates that decisions about development projects should be taken on social, environmental and economic grounds, not mythological ones.
Each time the Indian state bends to fundamentalist pressure, it compromises itself, and allows public reason to be trumped by religious belief or private prejudice. This isn’t the mark of a society that aspires to modernity, tolerance and pluralism.
(The writer is a Delhi-based researcher, peace and human rights activist, and former newspaper editor.)
 

EDUCATION
For Priority to School Education our University Education
AIMMM’s Letter to Minister of HRD, 11 Oct., 07
In your inaugural address to the national conference of Vice Chancellor on development of higher education convened by the UGC, you are reported to have stated that higher education was always the ‘sick child’ of education, either by design or default. We agree with you that it is the sick child of the family but to most observers of the educational scene feel that as compared to school education, primary or secondary or higher secondary. University education has always been the pampered child of the government. Indeed, the educational pyramid has always appeared to be inverted, with comparatively little investment in the base and much more on the top.
Happily it has been changing. We are glad to note that under the 11th Five-Year-Plan 5% of the GDP shall be available for education and nearly 20% of total plan resources have been marked for this sector. The main burden of providing elementary education of acceptable quality will fall upon the govt., central and state, while higher education will receive increasing attention from the private sector particularly, for technical education.
We strongly urge you that primary, secondary and higher secondary education must receive the highest priority in that order to achieve the constitutional and national goal of universal elementary education and to generate & promote a surge of merit and talent which would naturally seek fulfillment through college and university education, general & technical.
Despite your personal attention, the school sector still remains a barren field while all of us never tire of reiterating that the future of India lies in its children who must receive school education of good quality.
The purpose of this letter is to request you to consider a change in emphasis & priority in educational policy & planning.
It has been suggested that private universities should be subsidized by the government. Apart from provision of land at reasonable cost, the private universities would be in a position to draw upon bank credit, apart from the high fees that they would charge and they would not have any particular need of official subsidy. Central Government intervention in the university sector should go into the universities established and maintained by the central which should set the standards for the country.