Wages of divorce

May 31, 1999

The Mumbai High Court ruling in early May that a Muslim male is liable to provide for his divorced wife beyond the iddat period, revives the over decade–old controversy

Shah Bano died over a dozen years ago. But the issue that she raised and which made her a housej
hold name in India — a divorced Muslim woman’s right to maintenance from her former husband — refuses to fade away. It’s now 13 years since the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, buckled under the pressure of Muslim men to enact a special law for Muslim women — Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The new Act gave the impression to most Muslims and even others that through their countrywide agitation they had successfully established the ‘Islamic’ principle that since marriage is only a civil contract, once a Muslim male divorces his wife, he is not liable to pay her any maintenance beyond the three–month iddat period.

To begin with, several petitions filed by secular individuals and groups challenging the very constitutional validity of the 1986 act are pending before the Supreme Court. Secondly, divorced Muslim women with nowhere else to turn to, despite the pious promises of the orthodoxy, have continued to plead for justice from the courts. In the last few years, some high courts have interpreted the same 1986 law to mean that the former husband is obliged to provide for his divorced wife beyond the iddat period. The latest such ruling to refocus attention on the issue has been the verdict of a division bench of Mumbai High Court delivered in early May.

Zaitunbi Mubarak Shaikh of Satara district in Maharashtra was deserted by her husband, Mubarak Fakhruddin Shaikh, in 1980. In response to an application filed by her under Section 125 CrPC, the local magistrate ruled in June 1981 that her husband pay her Rs.60 per month for maintenance. Then on October 6, 1986, Zaitunbi filed an application for enhancement of the maintenance sum to Rs.500 p.m. She prayed that she had not been keeping good health and the amount of Rs.60 was not even enough to pay for her medical bills and also that her husband who had a stable job could easily afford the enhanced amount.

Unfortunately for Zaitunbi, the Muslim Women’s Act, had been passed six months before her application. Taking recourse to the same, Mubarak informed the court on November 11, 1986 that he had divorced his wife (by registered post!) on October 29 (that is, 23 days after his deserted wife’s application), paid her the mehr amount of Rs.125 and Rs.150 towards maintenance for the iddat period. And so, according to the new Act, he was not obliged to pay any further maintenance. The petition came before the division bench after the sessions court, Satara, had ruled in Mubarak’s favour.

Section 3 (1) of the Muslim Women’s Act says a divorced woman shall be entitled to:

a) a reasonable and fair provision and maintenance to be made and paid to her within the iddat period by her former husband;

b) where she herself maintains the children born to her before or after her divorce, a reasonable and fair provision and maintenance to be made and paid by her former husband for a period of two years from the respective dates of birth of such children;

c) an amount equal to the sum of mehr or dower amount agreed to be paid to her at the time of her marriage according to Muslim law; and

d) all the properties given to her before or at the time of her marriage by her relatives or friends or the husband or any relatives of the husband or his friends.

It is the first of these clauses pertaining to "reasonable and fair provision and maintenance" which has tended to be interpreted differently by different high courts in the country.

The very first judgement under the amended Act was given by the Lucknow magistrate, Ms. Rekha Dixit. She awarded Rs. 68,000 to a divorced Muslim wife in a final settlement of all dues. In more recent years, the Gujarat, Kerala and now Mumbai high courts have interpreted the clause to mean the wife is entitled to payment from her former husband even beyond the iddat period. On the other hand, by a majority of two to one, a full bench of the Andhra Pradesh high court has ruled that the Act does not envisage any payment of maintenance beyond the iddat period.

Having looked up the separate dictionary meanings of the words provision and maintenance, Justices A.V. Savant and T.K. Chandrashekhara Das of the Mumbai high court have concluded that while passing the new law, the legislative intent — an important consideration while interpreting any law — was to provide for a woman beyond the iddat period.

Clearly, the ball now lies with the Supreme Court of India. For now, women’s organisations and other secular groups have welcomed the Mumbai court’s ruling, but there is some apprehension whether the basis on which the judges have arrived at their ruling — intention of the legislature while framing the law — will stand scrutiny in the Supreme Court. After all, wasn’t the frenzy of the Muslim clergy the political backdrop to appease whom Rajiv Gandhi piloted the new bill? On the other hand, stands a ruling of the Dacca high court of 1995, which argues entirely within the confines of Islam that the Quran very clearly enjoins upon Muslims to pay maintenance to their divorced wives until such time as they remarry. (See accompanying excerpts). In most other Muslim majority countries today, the former husband is obliged to pay maintenance to the former wife for different lengths of time beyond the iddat period. The Muslim male in India, in other words, demands privileges from secular India which are denied to his counterparts even in most states that claim to be run according to Islamic principles.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999. Year 6 No. 54, Special Report

A hero defamed

May 31, 1999

The saffron brigade’s claim that he was an ‘anti–Hindu fanatic’, results in the ‘postponement’ of the celebration of the 200th death anniversary of ‘martyr’ Tipu Sultan by the Karnataka government

British imperialists had entered the Indian sub–continent through the innocuous channels of trade
and commerce during the early part of the 17th century. Once they had set their feet firmly on the Indian soil under the protection and patronage of the Mogul emperors, it did not take them long to manifest their real political ambitions and sinister objectives of colonising India, taking fullest advantage of the political anarchy that prevailed in the country following the decline and disintegration of the Mogul power after emperor Aurangzeb.

In playing the subtle game of exploiting the age–old and intrinsic racial, communal and religious differences of different sections of the Indian people, the British excelled all the other European nations, such as the French, Dutch and Portuguese, who were also competing greedily with the British for establishing their own spheres of political power and influence in India. The British ultimately won, because of their superior strategy of "Divide and Rule", which throughout the colonial history of the British in India, they used very skilfully, ruthlessly and most unscrupulously in all their dealings with their opponents in the Indian sub–continent.

In the adventurous career of establishing their political hegemony throughout India, the British had encountered real challenges to their power only twice before the so–called ‘sepoy mutiny’ or the Indian rebellion (also described at times as India’s first war of Independence) against the British in 1857.

The first challenge was posed by Nawab Sirajuddaula of Bengal, who was eliminated without much difficulty by Clive in the battle of Plassey fought in 1757. Clive had, of course, succeeded through the intrigues and high treason of Mir Jaffar.

The second challenge, which was much more formidable than the first one, had come to the British from Tipu Sultan and his father Nawab Hyder Ali Khan of Mysore, whose kingdom at one time stretched over a vast area in Deccan, comprising not only the whole territory of the present day state of Karnataka, but also included sizeable portions of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra states.

Apart from fighting numerous battles with their other enemies, Tipu and his father fought four major wars against the British and their allies. So great were the military exploits and victories of Tipu and Hyder, and so crushing and humiliating were the defeats suffered by the British in the first two Mysore wars, that the British considered this Deccan Sultanate as a poisonous thorn in their side and spared no effort through treachery, intrigues and subversion to bring about the downfall of this Sultanate — an objective which they had failed to achieve on the battle fields otherwise.

To the national misfortune of India, the British succeeded in their efforts to kindle selfish ambitions and envy in the hearts of the Maratha rulers and the Nizam of Hyderabad; so much so, that they had joined with the British in forming an unholy common alliance against the Sultan. Encouraged by the British, the Maratha rulers and the Nizam suffered from illusions of false grandeur and glory and imagined themselves to be the legal heirs to the Mogul empire in India.

The courage and chivalry of Tipu Sultan on the battlefields earned from his friends and foes the title of the ‘Tiger of Mysore’ for the Sultan. It is said that the British feared Tipu so much — not only in India but also in England — that mothers used to frighten their children just by using the name of Sultan.

There are different versions about the role of Tipu Sultan in fighting the British in India. In some books of history pertaining to Tipu Sultan, written either by the British authors or other writers influenced by the British, the Sultan has been depicted as a Muslim religious fanatic, who was intolerant of other religions and persecuted their followers. It is alleged that hundreds and thousands of Hindus and Christians were either massacred or forcibly converted to Islam on the orders of the Sultan. Tipu is also alleged to have destroyed in his religious frenzy, scores of temples and churches.

Tipu and his father Hyder Ali have also been shown in some books as usurpers, who in their greed for power had deprived the legitimate Hindu Raja of Mysore of his throne and his kingdom. It is pointed out that with the fall of Srirangapatnam, the capital of the Sultanate, and the death of Tipu on the battle–field in the fourth war of Mysore in 1799, when the British bestowed the throne of Mysore to the Hindu Raja, the British acted most justly; in fact, they undid an act of grave "injustice" and "tyranny" perpetrated on the Raja and his Hindu subjects by Tipu Sultan and his father.

Taking into consideration the factors mentioned in the above paragraphs, it should be quite obvious that the various charges levelled against Tipu Sultan were totally baseless and were concocted by the British to fit into their strategy of ‘Divide and Rule’, with particular reference to the two major religious communities of India. It would, nevertheless, be necessary to establish the real truth on the basis of pure historical facts.

Late Mahmood Khan Mahmood of Bangalore, in his much celebrated biographical book on the history and times of Tipu Sultan, entitled Sultanate–e–Khudabad, after much painstaking research, with reference to both Hindu and foreign historians and writers, had with documentary evidence and proof refuted the allegations against Tipu as based on untruth. Modern historical research of the period has also shown the various allegations to be "historical myths" and fiction invented by the British and their henchmen to malign the Sultan with an avowed objective of sowing seeds of discord and hatred between Hindus and Muslims in order to strengthen and perpetuate the British Raj in India.

Tipu was undoubtedly a very pious and God fearing Muslim. It is recorded in his biography that when the construction of the great Jami Mosque at Srirangapatnam was completed, it was proposed by the learned scholars that the first inaugural prayers should be led by a pious person who had not missed even a single prayer since attaining the age of puberty. While there was reluctance and even some sort of consternation amongst the distinguished scholars and noblemen gathered on the great occasion for complying with his condition, one person stepped forward to lead the prayers, as required. This pious person was none other than the Sultan himself.

But Tipu Sultan’s religious nature and piety, as stated, did not prevent him from being kind, just and considerate to his non–Muslim subjects. In fact, he was liberal and generous to them as illustrated by the following events.

Even to this day, there are numerous Hindu temples in the Deccan which are enjoying the benefits of jagirs granted by the Sultan. It is noteworthy that once, in a war with the Marathas, the Maratha army had laid siege to the Sultan’s capital city of Srirangapatnam. Angered by their defeat, the Maratha troops, before their retreat, ransacked not only the populated suburbs of the capital, but also looted the famous temple of Sri Ranga in the vicinity of the city on the banks of river Cauvery. When this sad story of plunder of the temple reached the Sultan, he not only got the damage repaired, but also restored to the temple the equivalent of the wealth carried away by the invaders. His Hindu subjects gratefully acknowledged this act of generosity and liberalism on the part of Tipu. The holy temple itself is a standing monument to this day to Sultan’s religious liberalism and benevolence.

Tipu Sultan’s great respect and regard for the Shankaracharya of the famous Sringeri Mutt and his several munificent grants for this Mutt situated in his kingdom are well known.

Dr S. Radhakrishnan in his book, Present Crisis of Faiths, wrote:

"Tipu on many occasions requested the Sringeri Shankaracharya to offer prayers to God. Once, he expressed great pleasure at the Sahasra Chandi Japa performed under the guidance of the Shankaracharya for the welfare of his kingdom".

It is nothing but slanderous to attribute to Tipu Sultan, a man of such broad–minded religious liberalism and catholic out–look, narrow–minded religious fanaticism. Similarly, stories of mass conversions and massacres of non–Muslims are also without any foundation whatsoever.

The various battles fought by the Sultan were of political rather than religious nature. He fought not only against the Marathas and British but also against the Nizam of Hyderabad and Nawab of Arcot. Of course, the Sultan had to suppress with an iron hand, rebellions by sections of people, who included not only Hindus and Christians, but also Muslims. All this was done in the business of ruling the kingdom and was not done as persecution of non–Muslims.

It may be mentioned here that when the Sultan saw that some Christian converts were often being used by the British missionaries as fifth columnists and agents of the British imperialists to subvert his kingdom, he took suitable punitive action against such agents of the enemy in the interests of his state. It is meaningless to characterise the Sultan’s action as "religious persecution".

As for the charge of usurping the throne and kingdom of the Hindu Raja, it would be relevant to narrate that before the advent of Hyder Ali Khan on the scene, the ‘Raja’ and his ‘Kingdom’ existed only nominally. After the disintegration of the Vijayanagar Empire, the ‘Raja’ who was a vassal of the Vijayanagar rulers had declared his ‘independence’. The Raja’s ‘kingdom’ comprised the town of Mysore and some 33 villages around it. Hyder Ali Khan, whose ancestors had migrated to the south from Bijapur, had joined the service of the Raja of Mysore, and risen to the rank of army commander. Tired and disgusted by the intrigues of his scheming courtiers, the Raja himself had handed over power to Hyder Ali Khan. It was Hyder Ali Khan, who, through his military genius and statesmanship, extended the frontiers of this tiny and obscure ‘kingdom’ to a great Sultanate of national and international reputation. Even after becoming a Nawab, Hyder Ali Khan, and later his son, Tipu Sultan, continued to give full protection to the Raja and his family and granted privy purses and allowances for their maintenance with honour and dignity befitting their royal status. This development was given a mischievous Hindu–Muslim communal twist by the British in order to gain their selfish political ends in India.

Coming to the positive side of the role played by Tipu Sultan, he may aptly be ranked amongst the first and foremost of the national heroes and martyrs of India, who laid down their lives so that their country and countrymen may live in freedom with dignity and honour.

It was Tipu, who with his rare far–sightedness had planned for the development and progress of ‘swadeshi’ trade and industry (particularly cottage industries). He also made pioneering efforts for developing agriculture through a well–developed irrigation system. It may be mentioned here that when the foundation for the present Krishnaraja Sagar dam near the city of Mysore on the river Cauvery was laid, during the early part of this century, engineers were surprised to find at the site a stone tablet, which indicated that the Sultan had already laid the foundation of an irrigation dam on the same site over a century ago!

It was Tipu Sultan, who for the first time in Indian history, had realised that Indians could not hope to survive as a free people, if they relied solely on their old and traditional methods of warfare for facing the challenge posed by the British. He tried, therefore, to modernise his armed forces with the help of the French, which struck terror into the hearts of the British. To Tipu Sultan again goes the credit of discovering another unique truth that the secret of the British might lay in their naval power. In order to combat this foreign menace, Tipu had tried to build up a strong Indian naval force at Bhatkal and Mangalore on the Arabian coast in his kingdom. Realising the national and international aspects of the menace posed by the British imperialists in India, Tipu had even tried to enlist the cooperation and collaboration of the Caliph of Turkey and Napoleon Bonaparte of France. It was unfortunate that intrigues and subversion engineered by the British and their agents thwarted the efforts of the Sultan.

Amongst those who had betrayed Tipu Sultan, Mir Sadiq and Poorniah top the list. Mir Sadiq and Poorniah, who were the Prime Minister and Dewan of the Sultan respectively, had conspired with the British in destroying the Sultanate of Tipu.

Poorniah’s appointment by Tipu as his trusted Dewan — a post next in importance only to Prime Ministership — was another example of the Sultan’s benevolence and communal generosity towards his Hindu subjects.

Referring to the treachery of Poorniah, Mahatma Gandhi had once written that he felt ashamed that Poorniah, who had betrayed the Sultan, was a Hindu.

Poet Iqbal had condemned the treacherous role of Mir Jaffar and Mir Sadiq as follows:

"Mir Jaffar–e–Bengal, o Mir Sadiq–e–Deccan

Nang–e–Adam, Nang–e–Deen, Nange–Watan"

(Mir Jaffar of Bengal and Mir Sadiq of Deccan, they are a disgrace to mankind, disgrace to their religion and disgrace to their country!)

It is recorded in his biography that during the fourth Mysore war, when he was fighting the last and most fateful battle of his life, Mir Sadiq had approached the Sultan with the advice that he should come to terms with the British. Tipu Sultan is said to have retorted that it was better to live like a tiger for one day than live like a jackal for a hundred years.

By laying down his life for the freedom of his country, Tipu had exemplified by his supreme sacrifice what could be the best and most glorious in India’s history and national traditions of service and sacrifice.

It is rather unfortunate, and in fact a national tragedy, that notwithstanding his supreme sacrifices, the role of Tipu Sultan as one of the first and foremost national heroes, patriots and freedom fighters of India is yet to be recognised and appreciated in full by his country and country men.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999.Year 6 No. 54, Forum

A foe in need is a friend indeed

May 31, 1999

With elections not so far away in India and Nawaz Sharif embroiled in a series of domestic skirmishes, Atal Behari Vajpayee’s friend from Lahore could not have done the BJP and himself a bigger favour than opening the Kargil front

The Dilli–Lahore goodwill bus had been cruising along comfortably — in the right direction if not at the desired speed. The reception which the most important passenger on that peace route — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee — received in February during his brief journey across the Wagah, and the response the visiting Pakistani cricket team got from spectators in India a little earlier — both when they won (Chennai) and when they lost (New Delhi) — made it evident that the Jamaat–e–Islami and the Bal Thackerays notwithstanding, amity was the prevailing mood on both sides of the divide. Who then is to be blamed for hijacking the peace process to the chilling Kargil heights?

When investigating a murder case, the first thing any crime investigation agency looks for is motive: Who stands to benefit? An analysis of how things have so quickly, and apparently inexplicably, degenerated from friendship talks to a ‘war–like’ situation can similarly benefit from asking the elementary question: Who benefits from the ominous developments on the border?

From the Indian ‘nationalistic’ perspective, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is the obvious villain of the piece. Why should Sharif invite Vajpayee to Lahore in February and then up the ante in less than 100 days? The explanation is that the Pakistani Prime Minister, embroiled into an increasing number of difficulties on the domestic front, badly needed a scapegoat to divert public attention.

In early 1997, Nawaz Sharif was returned to power with a massive mandate. Barely two years later, his popularity is on a nosedive. Economically, Pakistan is in a shambles, forex reserves are down to a mere one billion dollars (as against India’s reserves of over 33 billion) and the Karachi Stock Exchange in an acute state of depression.

Politically, there is increasing talk within the country today of Pakistan being a “failed state”. Sharif’s only response to the deepening crisis has been to damage or dismantle any institution that could act as a forum for the articulation of censure, dissent or mass discontent. The Pakistani Prime Minister has ensured that a person of his choice heads the army, the courts have virtually been turned into “handmaidens to the executive”, the free press is under constant assault, the country’s independent Human Rights Commission has been ordered to cease publishing its newsletter and a witch–hunt is now being conducted against all “anti–state” non–governmental organisations (NGOs). Not surprisingly, the highly influential Economist published from London has recently advised the World Bank not to bail out Pakistan since, with the institutions of democracy being attacked and undermined one after another, there will be little accountability left in Pakistani society.

In the face of mounting problems and criticism, inside Pakistan and globally, one option before the beleaguered Sharif was to do what U.S. President Bill Clinton, the former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and many other international leaders did to lift their sagging political fortune — raise the bogey of the external enemy, rouse nationalist fervour and rally people behind yourself. Fortuitously for Sharif, with only a caretaker government in charge in neighbouring New Delhi and with snow melting in the Himalayas, the political and natural climate was just right to play the Kashmir card.

In short, the easy answer to whodunnit question is, Nawaz Sharif.
But from the Pakistani ‘nationalistic’ perspective, the blame is to be heaped entirely on India’s door. Faced with a fresh challenge from ‘freedom fighters’, the Indian state has chosen to pretend it is dealing with Pakistani army–backed infiltrators. Besides, with elections round the corner, the BJP hopes to reap in extra votes by raising the Pakistan bogey.

Until a few weeks ago, indications were that the outcome of the polls due in the next few months will not be very different from the results of the last Lok Sabha elections in held in early 1998. The BJP–led alliance was hoping to score over its main political rival, the Congress, by raising a hue and cry over the fact that the latter’s prime ministerial candidate is a foreigner by origin. However, there are two problems with the ‘foreigner card’: firstly, the result of recent opinion polls indicate that the electorate is not particularly perturbed with Sonia’s Italian origin; secondly, with Sharad Pawar having revolted on the same issue and with other potential constituents of the new Third Front in–the–making — Mulayam Singh Yadav (U.P.), Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra), Karnataka’s chief minister, J. H. Patel, segments of the Left Front — also bent on playing the same card, the BJP and its allies are unsure about how much dividend the ‘foreign card’ will yield.

But an Italian–born Prime Minister at a time when the country faces a grave threat from across the border? Surely, the ‘nation in danger’ and ‘foreigner as PM’ mix makes for a much more potent cocktail?

Thus, theoretically speaking, irrespective of their present posturing, continued tension on the Kargil front suits the political needs of both Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee. Factually speaking, the U.S. and the British response to the Kargil crisis, as also reports in The New York Times and The Independent (London), indicate that they agree with India that Pakistan is the guilty party. Besides, India also claims to have conclusive proof, in the form of dead bodies of Pakistani soldiers, that what it is dealing with in the Himalayan heights is not ‘freedom fighters’ from Kashmir but infiltrators from across the border backed with equipment and personnel of the Pakistani armed forces. But nothing debunks the ‘freedom fighters’ thesis more than the fact that after a gap of nearly 10 years, Kashmir is overflowing with tourists from the rest of India. Surely, it is not guns in the hands of the Indian jawans that are keeping the houseboat owners on the Dal Lake from reaching for the tourists’ throats?
Even if one assumes this to be the facts of the case, there remains a mystery on the Indian side on what is presently being passed off by different analysts and opposition parties as ‘intelligence failure’, ‘lack of co–ordination between the intelligence and the Indian armed forces’, ‘failure of the defence ministry and the Indian government’ to respond with alacrity to the security threat. Should not a more specific clarification be sought on the timing of the action initiated at Kargil, an action that (coincidentally?) suits the caretaker government facing an election better than resting on the laurels of a newly–initiated peace process? A point being made, in private, by several senior retired army personnel would support this contention: Pakistan’s crossing of the LOC in the Kargil heights is nothing new; what is new is the decision of the caretaker government to challenge the intrusion.

The question, in other words, is: had the Vajpayee government not fallen in April leading to the imperative of fresh elections, would India and Pakistan still be talking peace, never mind the violations 18,000 feet above sea level?

We reproduce in the following pages an article by a senior journalist from Pakistan (See page 13) who argues that the need for an external enemy — India — is written into the very logic of the direction in which the Pakistani state is moving. On the Indian side, what the caretaker government’s game–plan is for now will become clearer as we get closer to the polls. But beyond the immediate, Teesta Setalvad’s article (see page 16) highlights the fact that in the continuing battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the people of Kashmir barely figure in the discourse on either side.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999, Year 6 No. 54, Cover Story 1

“India and Pakistan will play the war game indefinitely”

May 31, 1999

India and Pakistan will play the war game indefinitely

— Pervez Hoodbhoy
(Professor of physics at Quaid–e–Azam University, Islamabad)

There are many Kargils to come, I fear. Nuclear weapons have made brinksmanship possible, meaning that one hopes to get as close to war as possible without actually having war. India and Pakistan shall keep playing this game indefinitely until such time as a tragic error or miscalculation rules out further play. Pakistan is totally serious about Kashmir. Call it an obsession if you will, but facts are facts, and all indications are that its support for the militants will increase in times to come. This was the essential content of the speech by the chief of army staff, General Pervez Musharraf, in Karachi on April 10 this year.

Presently there is much jubilation here in Pakistan about Indian planes and helicopters being downed. Sadly, most people don’t realise how close this pushes us to the brink, and have no idea of how total and final a fall would be. They also do not understand the immense cost which Pakistani civil society has paid for supporting insurgency in Kashmir.

One should never have had illusions about the Lahore Declaration; it was a mere consequence of international pressure, particularly from the US, for the two prime ministers to look as if they are serious about peace. Even so, it was a good thing and every attempt to reduce enmity and tensions is to be welcomed. The bus service is still doing well, after all. I feel that we must welcome negotiations at all levels even if the results are marginal.

We must, however, also recognise that the basics have not changed, and probably will not change unless something very major happens. If that “something” is less than war, we shall be very fortunate. India and Pakistan are likely to make it past Kargil this time, and to the end of this millenium, with high probability. But unless there is a radical departure from past behaviour, I doubt that we will make it past the next few decades ahead.

Adopt a dual strategy
— Praful Bidwai
(A senior journalist and founder member of Movement in India on Nuclear Disarmament)

The peace movement in both countries should not assume it knows the answer. Rather, it should adopt a dual strategy: advocate normalisation and progress in all areas, independently of Kashmir; and call for a modest beginning at coming to grips with the Kashmir issue while the general relationship improves.

The first strategy is minimalist and worth pursuing regardless of the second. There is simply no reason why the grotesque conflict at Siachen, which has killed 10,000 and costs Rs. 3 crores a day, should not be resolved or the Wular, Sir Creek and trade issues should remain undecided even though Kashmir is not settled. But this needs a much deeper commitment than was shown at Lahore. “Bus diplomacy” was symbolically welcome, but substantively very thin. The Lahore accords were not even about arms control, only about limited transparency. India and Pakistan didn’t even agree to slow down nuclear and missile development or to stop testing. Lahore didn’t mark a real breakthrough. We still need one.

As for Kashmir, it is vitally important that a process of discussion begins. But this must be defined and enunciated, first and foremost, by the Kashmiri people themselves.

Fortunately, a beginning seems to have been made. At the Hague Appeal for Peace conference last month, a cross–border dialogue took place among Kashmiris from different political tendencies, from the JKLF and the Hurriyat to Pannun Kashmir. This needs to be built upon.

Durable peace requires Kashmir solution and more
— Zia Mian
(Scientist of Pakistani origin teaching at MIT, USA)

There can be no doubt that both Indians and Pakistanis, must talk about Kashmir, with the Kashmiris, and find a solution. Unless there is a settlement over Kashmir, that the Kashmiris feel reflects their aspirations, any peace between India and Pakistan may not thrive or survive. Until it is erased from the maps and from people’s minds, the Line of Control will always be a place for Lack of Control, especially for demagogues and would be heroes.
At the same time, it may be un–reasonable to assume that a settlement of the Kashmir issue would in itself create lasting peace. One of the lessons of the end of the Cold War was that even though the Soviet Union is no more, its nuclear weapons remain (about 10,000 are operational), as do those of the United States (about 8,000 are operational). Both are still prepared to fight a thermonuclear war against each other, and in the process obliterate themselves and the rest of us. The Cold War has led to a bitter, resentful, grudging, nuclear armed Cold Peace. At times it is hard to tell the difference between the two.

Both these aspects must be kept in mind. A durable peace in the region needs a solution to Kashmir, but it requires far more. This requires that we rid ourselves of nuclear weapons. We must overcome nationalism as an ideology, transform the state as a political institution, and bring justice within society.

In the situation we are now in, with fighting along the Line of Control and nuclear weapons casting their terrible shadow over the region, there has to be movement towards peace no matter what. If nothing else, it can be narrow and focussed on tiny steps forward, for example restraining nuclear weapons development and deployment, loosening the restrictions on people’s travel across the border, increasing trade and so on. But unless Kashmir is addressed there is always the danger that it will be the kind of movement where for every one step forward there shall be two steps backward.

This is what seems to have happened with the Lahore Declaration.
There should however not be too many illusions about the Lahore Declaration. It was the same two leaders who talked peace in Lahore who earlier had ordered the nuclear weapons tests. It was expedient, given international opinion, for them to stop fighting (at least for a while) and make up. Once the world moved on to other issues, the battle was resumed.

Track two has a limited objective
— J.N. Dixit
(Former Indian foreign secretary)

The thing to remember is that track–two diplomacy has been going on, through various initiatives, for the last ten years. What has been most significantly observed about such intiatives is that they have no impact on government policy at all. On either side, in Pakistan or in India, the power structures of the two governments do not take into account either what is discussed at these fora or the recommendations made. So while track–two diplomacy may be broadly useful, the immediate impact is not noticeable.

What happens at a time when we are faced with a situation like we presently are in at Kargil? Even those individuals who are committed to peace and rational thinking on such issues get disappointed and wonder how to carry on because, when a territorial dispute arises, popular resentment and national feelings are aroused. Even the people who are committed to the improvement of relations between the two neighbours are faced with a wider public opinion that becomes antagonistic.

In Pakistan, newspapers, television and radio report news of the bombing of “our schools and the killing of our children”. In India, the heavy casualties, the violation of the sanctity of an international agreement — the incursion beyond the LOC seven–ten miles into our territory — all in the face of Pakistan claiming not to have made any mistake raises temperatures.

I do believe that for at least one year, even government–level talks are not going to make serious headway. The foreign ministers may meet several times over — so that the world cannot tell us that we are being unreasonable — but the inner impulses on either side will not contribute to coming to any reasonable compromises on either side.

Track one diplomacy gets vitiated by such developments such as the current situation in Kargil. And track two efforts serve a limited objective: they keep alive trends in public opinion and are important at that level but are limited in their impact and reach. Unfortunately, what is a forgone conclusion today is that even if there was earlier some possibility of imminent solutions, these have been irretrievably delayed further.

The situation will defuse soon
— Dr. Mubashir Hasan
(Former finance minister, Pakistan)

The process started by both the prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee envisaged clearly talking on all issues including Kashmir. Unfortunately this unique intitiative, the first of its kind in fifty years, was first put off, or delayed by the dissolution of the Indian Lok Sabha and has now been stalled by the recent operations in Kargil. I foresee that grim though the situation in Kargil today seems, it will defuse within ten–fifteen days time.

We must also remember that whenever the two governments come close to resolving issues or making a beginning even, something occurs to put a spoke in the wheel. It could be much–publicised news of USA supplying F16s to Pakistan that makes the Indians angry or it could be the news of a big explosion on Pakistani soil that makes the Pakistanis angry! These are the considered machinations of those international powers who do not want regional peace in South Asia. The Sharif–Vajpayee governments were for the first time in the process of co–relating their nuclear policies. An identical nuclear policy is in the interest of both Pakistan and India. This is not what vested international powers want.

Await more stable governments
— Nirmal Mukherjee
(Former Indian cabinet secretary and governor, Punjab)

I don’t believe that the doings of peace groups are undone. I believe the urge for peace remains unchanged. The current situation in Kargil is illustrative of the games regimes play. My own view is that India is going through a situation of political flux (as our former prime minister, V.P. Singh has been saying) except that I feel that the results of the next election will be another pre–final. Until the voice of the oppressed, the vast majority, gets finally heard. In the midst of this flux, with weak governments at the helm, peace activists cannot do too much. They must hold their fire, conserve their energy, remain in touch, gather as many facts, and as much information about each other, as possible. And await a political climax over the next decade when the moves for peace find receptive listeners in government.

Peace pressure must continue
— B.M. Kutty
(Convenor, Pakistan Peace Coalition; also secretary, Sind province committee of Pak–India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy)

It is true that the situation presently looks very bleak and frustrating. Something like the recent developments in Kargil appear to undermine by months and years the efforts put in by pro–peace organisations and individuals on both sides. But peace groups cannot afford to give up in either country. The argument for people to people contact, the need for increased interaction, remains as valid today as it was before. So, irrespective of what happens at the government level, we should go on pressing for further contacts.

Also peace groups cannot close their eyes to the fact that Kashmir remains a very sensitive issue between the two countries and a resolution of this issue is essential for durable peace. It has acquired a hydra–headed character that cannot be pushed under the carpet. We, therefore, will have to evolve perspectives for a resolution of the problem and thereafter mount pressure on the government on both sides to act on them.

To begin with, a few things are very clear. The Kashmir problem cannot be solved militarily — neither by India’s military action nor by Pakistan’s intervention through support to this or that group. Both the governments have to agree that the people of Kashmir also count — no agreement will work unless it enjoys the confidence of the Kashmiri people.

I personally believe that unless people of Kashmir on both sides are given an absolutely free choice, with no Indian troops present and without any Pakistani involvement, there will be no solution possible.

Kashmir’s accession to India is final
— Vishnu Bhagwat
(Former Chief of the Indian Navy)

In my mind, there can be no question of any moves towards lasting peace within the region being at all feasible with Pakistan insisting on intervention in Kashmir. This is true not only in the context of the recent infiltration in Kargil but in the context of Jammu and Kashmir as a whole. For India and for me, the question of Kashmir and its accession are final through the instrument of accession and no Indian government has any right to indulge in any kind of bargaining so far as the question of the status of Jammu and Kashmir within the Indian union is concerned. This is because, in more ways than one, Kashmir is not only the symbol of Indian secularism but the sine qua non of both the secular Indian constitution and the secular India state. It is literally the head of the body that is India. The will of the people of Kashmir was behind the accession of Kashmir to India as opposed to the rulers of not just Kashmir but Hyderabad, Junagadh and Jaipur who wanted independent status, their treaties with the British having lapsed. Under no circumstances can any state of the Indian union, be it Punjab, Kashmir or a government at the centre be encouraged or permitted to take on a non–secular, theocratic garb.

On all other issues like trade and business, people–to–people links, cultural exchanges these are welcome since we are basically the same people. But I strongly feel that Kashmir cannot be a part of these levels of exchanges. Here I would like to quote the example of Abraham Lincoln who held the American union together at the cost of a civil war knowing full well the implications of such a war. Secession was something that was never entertained as a possibility let alone an eventuality.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999, Year 6 No. 54, Cover Story 2

What ails Pakistan?

May 31, 1999

The problem with Pakistan is that the citizen is alienated from the State and considers it his enemy, but the State wants to convince the people that it is India which is the real threat to their security of life

Who is alienated in the State of Pakistan? If reconciliation is needed, between whom is it needed? The apparent great rift is between the Pakistan Muslim League and Pakistan Peoples Party. They form the two political poles in Pakistan and since 1988 they have formed factions that revenge themselves regularly on each other. Will it be enough to reconcile the two? Will that remove the national alienation? The other alienated party is the MQM which needs to be reconciled to the State. Will this reconciliation bind the wounds of the State?

Most of the political actors in Pakistan are of the same category. Their alienation in fact does not affect the State. Pakistani people are indifferent to their fate. The real alienation exists elsewhere. In the federation the alienation is between the majority province Punjab and the smaller provinces. It has been formalised by democracy through the parliament where Punjab forms a ready–made two–thirds majority. Whatever Punjab thinks becomes the doctrine of the State. All institutions of the State are dominated by Punjabis, including the armed forces, including even the navy, where the coastal population should have dominated.

Beyond the inter–provincial alienation, a deeper alienation has been caused by the ideology of the State itself. This goes back to the crucial ideological decisions taken at the beginning. An Islamic state has been moving steadily towards its theocratic destination, making the politicians progressively irrelevant. A very large section of the population follows the clerical leadership which wants a revolution as a means of establishing theocracy in Pakistan. The corruption of the political parties has deepened the estrangement of the common man in Pakistan. Erosion of State institutions has forced him to seek protection from the clerical organisations.

Reconciliation is needed between the political parties and their voters. They want good governance from them which the parties simply cannot provide. Can there be a reconciliation between the masses and the leaders who get voted into power repeatedly? The very nature of leadership in Pakistan is an obstacle to this reconciliation. The politician relies on the very rhetoric the clergy uses against them. If the clergy wants Shariat, the politician, too, wants it. Only, after the politician has enforced Shariat, the morality of the State sinks even further. This convinces the common man that Shariat can be properly implemented only by the clergy.

That Shariat is the monopoly of the clergy is a historical fact. The Quran can be interpreted only by the ulema, not by the parliament. The ijma (consensus) demanded by Islamic jurisprudence is not the ijma of the parliament but the ijma of the ulema. Why should the ulema surrender this historical right to the politician when the politician doesn’t even claim this right? After the Iranian Revolution, the Iranian ulema agreed to an Islamic constitution under the government of politicians. The Bazargan government accepted the constitution in 1979 on the assumption that the people of Iran would be represented through an elected sovereign government. But in 1978, the dominant clergy realised that Iran could only have a theocracy, not an elected government.

In Pakistan the clergy is deeply divided. It cannot form itself into a single party or an alliance of parties supported by the people. Unlike the people of Iran, the people of Pakistan prefer to award political mandate only to political parties. Divided along confessional fissures, they seek a unified electorate through support to political parties. But they remain alienated because the textbook prescribes the Shariat and the political parties are not ‘qualified’ to enforce it. When they enforce it, problems of reconciliation of the Quranic law to modern times fore–ordain its failure. Alienation is built into this situation.

The State leans in favour of Islamic governance, a utopian construct on which it can’t deliver. The State is sensitive to the growing power of the religious organisations. Civil society and the armed forces are under their influence. Armed religious organisations are a factor to reckon with. Political parties, no longer able to rally people, now lean on them to gather people for a show of strength. Many opportunists now pin their hope on the ultimate handing over of the State to an imaginary ‘confederacy’ of armed religious organisations. A ‘national’ reconciliation between them and the elected government is not possible. One is the ‘alternative’ of the other, not a democratic choice.

All Islamic states find themselves unable to reconcile to the minorities. The idea of the zimmi is so deeply embedded in the Islamic mind that it barely tolerates the presence of a population not of the religion represented by the State. You only have to look at the evolution of the idea of the rights of the minorities protected in the Objectives Resolution in 1949 and the version of it inserted into the Constitution by General Zia to realise how impossible it is for an evolving Islamic state to reconcile with its religious minorities.

The alienation between the sunni majority population and the minority shia population has been caused by the armed religious organisations tacitly supported by the ulema. The objective of the ulema is to convert the shia Muslim population into a non–Muslim minority, after which the State can start treating them as it treats the other non–Muslim minorities or zimmis.

Can there be a reconciliation between the shia and sunni communities? Once again the doctrine of the State that only the ulema can interpret the Islamic law hamstrings it. If the ulema are responsible for the alienation, how can they remove it?

The shia–sunni alienation is embedded in Islamic history. History is interpreted by the two communities separately. Historical events are known and understood by the two in a manner that the two versions cannot be reconciled. Pakistan is an Islamic state, but if you look closely at its law–making processes, it is in fact a sunni state. Laws emanate as much from the Quran as from hadith, but hadith is differently compiled and understood by the two communities. No shia–sunni reconciliation within the Islamic state is possible unless the historical documents are re–examined.

No one in Pakistan will agree to examine these documents. But in a State that the Quaid had envisaged this reconciliation was possible; indeed this alienation would not have taken place at all. The Arab–Iranian stand–off epitomises this difficulty. Because of the dominance of a fundamentalist mind–set on both sides of the divide, no reconciliation has so far been possible. Had there been a secular state in Iran, the pragmatist kingdoms of the Gulf would have made a deal with it, ignoring the militant Islamic storm arising in a partially democratic Egypt.

Historically, the rise of the Islamic state has immediately been engulfed by the sectarian problem.
No reconciliation is more difficult than the one meant to bind the ethnic alienation. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the ethnic problem is alive and kicking in Sindh and Balochistan. In both the provinces, large injections of external populations have been made. This is not to say that provinces have to be ethnically pure. Balochistan has been traditionally an admixture of the Baloch and the Pakhtun. Indeed the two ethnic–linguistic communities have a record of political co–operation in the face of Punjabi dominance in the federation.

Sindhi cities have been traditionally more cosmopolitan than those in Punjab. Its Sindhi population has been predominantly rural, living under a very tough feudal system which has prevented it from graduating to an urban identity. The large repeated injections of alien populations from within Pakistan and from Bangladesh after the 1971 war have been far beyond the economic capacity of the province to absorb them. The same kind of thing has happened with Balochistan during and after the Afghan war. Good governance, a rather stringent observance of the rule of law, and steady economic development can resolve the ethnic divisions over the long term.

But these very elements are missing in Pakistan.
The State wants to convince the people that the real alienation is external, that it is India which is the real threat to their security of life. As internal threats increase and intensify, the State turns more determinedly to the raising of the external threat. It also tells the people that it wants to reconcile with India as the enemy country next door, but India will not allow it, or will allow it in a way that is dishonourable. If the threat is external and cannot be removed through reconciliation, what are the people to do? The expectation of the State is that external threat will unite them and make them forget the internal threat.

The real threat comes from internal alienation. This has to be recognised. It comes from the erosion of the institutions of the State no longer able to ensure the rights of the citizen. The citizen is alienated from the State and considers it his enemy. This is true of all populations but more true of people living in the smaller provinces because they see the majority province Punjab presiding over the State institutions. The most crucially defective aspect of the State is the provision of law and order and justice.

Can the State reconcile the citizen to itself when its real expectation is that external threat alone should reconcile them? Instead of producing an effective structure of law and order, it produces nuclear devices and test–fires missiles over the head of the people. Its budgets no longer serve the people. It makes budgets to pay off debts, spend on defence, and buy more weapons. The ideology of the State and its doctrines of defence are too inflexible to provide the conditions needed for national reconciliation. That which is inflexible withstands pressure for some time, but it breaks when the pressure passes a certain point. After that, solutions become possible.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999, Year 6 No. 54, Cover Story 3

Battles in the mind

May 31, 1999

Real battles are fought and won in the mind. For both Pakistan and India, with equally rigid mind–sets, the current conflict along the LOC offers another fortuitous occasion to bombard their people with mutually hardened positions on the one issue that begs urgent resolution — the Kashmir dispute. The opening of a war front in Kargil could not have come at a more opportune time for the political leadership in both countries.

For Pakistan, responsible for this provocation, the commitment to support Kashmiri ‘freedom fighters’ in their revolt against Indian repression, runs deep — it stems from the Pakistani establishment’s ideological resolve to complete the ‘unfinished agenda of Partition’ despite the fact that the very basis of the two–nation theory has been seriously challenged within Pakistan itself and what we have today is a thoroughly dismembered state. But Kashmir still manages to recapture much of this lost sentiment.

TheQaid–e–Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s derision for the Kashmiri people (he had dubbed the Quit Kashmir movement of the Muslim–majority Kashmiris against Maharaja Hari Singh as a movement of goondas!) is conveniently forgotten. What is being pursued with single–minded devotion is not just a territorial proxy war but also an attempt to impose the highly regimental Wahabi Islam on a valley renowned for its Rishism (Sufism). Schools and madrasas run by the local Jamaat–e–Islami have been systematically used in a continuing attempt to transform the local struggle for Kashmiriyat to visions of life under Nizam–e–Mustafa (The Order of the Prophet).

For India, too, the discourse in the past week has cynically charted familiar territory. The emphatic assertions about the territorial sovereignty and integrity of the Indian nation resound with a hollow arrogance, echoing through the perceptible absence of any Kashmiri voice in the present discourse. The government’s, the mainstream print media’s and television channels’ black out of the voices of the young leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Yasin Mallik and senior Kashmiri leader, Shabbir Shah from available public spaces is predictable, given the surge of patriotic fervour that such conflicts engender. But also absent are the views of a Balraj Puri, a senior citizen of Jammu and an ardent advocate of sanity and dialogue, or a Saifuddin Soz, senior MP representing the National Conference. The absence of a wide spectrum of other local opinion from the region, and in that category I would include representatives of ousted Kashmiri Pandits, is a sorry comment on the dearth of democratic space available here.

Why would India be at all committed, morally or otherwise, to promises made to the Kashmiri people in 1947, 1950, 1953 and 1975 when it cannot trust the state with even the bare trappings of democratic governance? The only free and fair elections to that state were in 1977, results of which aroused a Valley–wide euphoria. This legally elected government was, yet again, cynically dismissed by the Centre. Going back even further, even the ‘Lion of Kashmir’, Sheikh Abdullah, was humiliated by his most trusted friend and India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Despite a personal commitment to the region, even Nehru could not overcome his suspicions about the Kashmiri Muslims’ allegiance to India.

How much of the suspicions that have only hardened over the last 50 years have to do with the fact that the avowedly secular Indian state, under both Congress and non–Congress governments, barely trusts the people of a sensitively located region basically because they are overwhelmingly Muslim?

A failure to confront this history has been reflected in the past and continuing conduct of both the government and our troops deployed in the Valley. What comes to mind is more than just the enormity of the human loss, tragedies that have gone un–mourned by the rest of India. The cynical disregard for both the local people and their beliefs can be particularly observed from the Indian state’s apparent equanimity despite the systematic destruction, since 1989, of over 16 revered local shrines dedicated to Rishis, symbolic of inherently Kashmiri, Sufi Islam.

The Amarnath yatra has become for all Indians — not just the pilgrims who dare to make it there — an annual test of our military control over the Valley. Television images of Hindu pilgrims braving the militants’ fire in defence of their faith are both soothing and reassuring. But when Charar–e–Sharif, a glorious, all–wood shrine en route to Yusmarg in the Valley was gutted, the Indian government did not even order an official enquiry. Folklore in the Valley, however, still revolves around the relationship between Sheikh Noor Adam and a Shaivite priestess, Rishi Laleshwari, though the bitterness against an unfeeling government simmers.

Another 14th century shrine, Khanqah at Tral, 39 kilometers south of Srinagar, very dear to the local people apart from being a symbol of the Valley’s composite culture, was similarly gutted by a mysterious fire on December 18, 1997. The list of betrayals appears endless. There has been not even superficial effort at healing bitter wounds.
Whenever Pakistan’s foreign minister steps on Indian soil, the ‘dialogue’ will chart familiar territory. Both the Pakistanis and their Indian counterparts appear united in one resolve — keeping the talks at a bilateral level, excluding any representative from the region, despite their lip–service to tripartite talks in the last two years. This will remain an in futility until the voices from the Valley as also Jammu and Ladhakh are heard over the gunfire.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999, Year 6 No. 54, Cover Story 4

Don’t blame Rabri, Laloo

March 31, 1999

No mainline political party, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal, is really relevant to Jehanabad’s politics of bloody massacres

Home minister, L.K. Advani has made this point repeatedly: the rule of law does not prevail in Bihar. When he says this he possibly reflects his party’s political position on the ruling state regime of Rabri Devi–Laloo Prasad Yadav. Which is that the regime itself comprises lawless, if not unlawful elements and is, therefore, incapable of either upholding or enforcing the rule of law in the state. In the wake of the recent Jehanabad massacres, Advani and his party have become all the more convinced about their argument. But it would be a tragedy (probably no worse than the massacres themselves) if we were to get carried away by the argument and seek to find an answer to the curse of Jehanabad by focussing on the character of the state government.

This is because no mainline political party, including Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, is really relevant to the politics of Jehanabad. As is quite apparent, the bloody corpse count being done by two outlawed outfits in this deadly game of political one–up–man–ship, does not leave any scope for parliamentary politics. Of the two groups, one is the Ranvir Sena, a private militia of upper caste landowners, and the other is the Maoist Coordination Committee, a so–called militant organisation of the dispossessed lower castes. The very fact that the two are mobilising and nurturing their respective constituencies by mass murders proves that extreme violence has become acceptable to the supporters of the warring groups. In this situation, mainline democratic politics have become redundant.

Let’s first look at why Jehanabad is a special problem even in problem–ridden Bihar. Located to the southwest of Patna, Jehanabad district was created following the reorganisation of Patna and Gaya districts. It has no industry to talk of, but agriculturally it is well endowed. The land is fertile (part of the Gangetic plains) and is supported by the Sone irrigation system. Of course, the neglect of infrastructure has made this irrigation system non–functional in many parts of the district. The population is dependent on agriculture, but the land’s bounty has remained stagnant, and this makes the strife for land quite sharp.

On top of this, in a caste–ridden society, the caste divide in Jehanabad is particularly acute. The preponderant castes are Bhumihars, upper–caste land–owning farmers, Yadavas, politically assertive intermediate caste marginal farmers, and Dalits, landless lower caste peasants. A peculiar feature about Jehanabad is the high concentration of Dalits — in fact, it is the highest in Bihar. The sharp caste division has made Jehanabad a fertile zone for experimenting with extreme politics. One of the initial extreme leaders of Jehanabad was Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, a sadhu who got drawn to the communist movement and founded the Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha. He remains one of the revered figures of Bihar communists.

The communists were able to strike roots quite early in the region. In fact, the CPI was quite popular among the Bhumihars to begin with as the party’s leadership came from this relatively educated upper caste. But the honeymoon was brief — once the communists took up the demand for minimum wages and share–cropping rights, the land–owning Bhumihars felt alienated. As long as the CPI was organising movements against the zamindars, the land-owning sections felt drawn to it, but once the focus moved to themselves, it became a different story. By the early sixties, the Yadavas became the vanguard of the CPI.

By the seventies, politics began taking a violent turn in Jehanabad. The CPI was furiously opposed by the Bhumihars and a measure of desperation crept in among them when despite their opposition, the CPI was able to send Yadavas to the Lok Sabha — Ram Ashrey Prasad Singh, a CPI leader belonging to the Yadava caste, was the main success story. The notorious King Mahendra, a Bhumihar Congress leader who patronised criminals and specialised in booth–capturing, grew in opposition to the CPI. Subsequently, there was Sardar Krishna Singh and other Bhumihar toughies. The ground, in other words, was being laid for a higher level of political violence in Jehanabad in comparison to the adjoining areas.

The Yadavas, unfortunately, were found wanting in their attitude to the castes lower to them — the most backward castes like Kahars (palanquin bearers) and Mallahs (boatmen) and, of course, the scheduled castes. By and large, the Yadavas did to the lower castes what the higher castes did to them. The Dalits were oppressed, denied minimum wages, and their women routinely violated by both the upper and the intermediate castes.

Culturally, however, this region was different from north Bihar. The Brahminical varna system did not have the kind of cultural sanction as it did north of the Ganga. Acknowledgement of upper caste ‘supremacy’ could be obtained here only under compulsion.

The combination of the Yadava attitude — or roughly speaking, the CPI’s politics — and upper caste oppression created conditions for the growth of still more extreme politics: in the main, it led to the growth of the IPF, a Marxist–Leninist formation which mobilised the low castes and vowed to extract peasant rights by the power of the gun. Subsequently, the M–L groups splintered, some joined parliamentary politics, while some, like the MCC, became very ruthless and barbaric in pursuit of their theory of annihilation of class enemies. Today, there are charges of the MCC behaving like a mercenary army whose ‘services’ have been bought by political parties from time to time.

It’s a measure of the nature of politics in this region of Bihar that virtually every caste has built and developed its own private army. The Bhumihars initially had their Bramharshi Sena (now it has become the Ranvir Sena to which all upper castes pledge support), the Yadavas, the Lorik Sena, the Kurmis, the Bhumi Sena, while the Dalits had their underground squads under the banner of M–L groups to counter and fight these private militias. Survival, in other words, hinged on a group’s armed might and the political discourse developed accordingly.

No where in Bihar has the macabre phrase, chhey inch chota kar dena (slicing six inches from a person’s height — by slashing of the throat), been actually practised the way it has in central Bihar. Easy availability of illegal arms has made it all quite widespread.

Since the mid–Eighties, there have been mass murders. Topping the massacre milestones are the killings in Arwal where 70–80 Dalits were killed, and the Damoha killings soon thereafter when 25 upper castes were beheaded. It fell into a pattern after that. Adding to the spate of killings were other vested interests who utilised private armies to settle different kinds of arguments. Overall, while in the rest of Bihar the upper castes were learning to come to terms with the politics of Laloo Prasad Yadav and grudgingly acknowledge the importance of backwards politics, in Jehanabad time virtually stood still. Caste contradictions remained just as strong and caste rivalries implacable.

In the backdrop of this was, of course, the land issue. For one thing, land reforms have not been carried out in Bihar and in the district of Jehanabad the state has failed to rustle up even relatively less fertile excess land for distribution. For another thing, despite the prosperity of the land–owning upper caste (not all of them are, however landed; a good 40 per cent of the upper castes are marginal farmers), and despite the mobilisation by M–L groups, statutory minimum wages are simply not paid in this area. As a matter of fact, the issue has ceased to be an economic one; for the landlords it is now a question of prestige — how can they buckle under duress and meet the demand? And at the same time, the Dalits are determined to extract their due.

In this situation of extreme polarisation, nothing really will be gained in Jehanabad by replacing the Rabri government by central rule. At most, central rule would be viewed by Bhumihars and other upper castes of the area as BJP rule and would encourage them to wreck a more ruthless ‘revenge’. And, as a corollary, it would make groups like MCC even more desperate to establish that its power has not been diminished by the change of government in Patna, thus possibly escalating the spiral of killings. Instead of getting dragged into the political football over the massacres, it is time to treat Jehanabad as a national challenge.

A ‘national challenge’, of course, sounds like a moth–worn cliché. The kind of thing that is said when no solutions are in sight. But as it happens in Jehanabad, a start can be made by persuading the landlords to pay minimum wages. Given the kind of complex emotions that this otherwise simple demand is expected to generate, it requires an effort from every national party. Those who wear bleeding hearts on their sleeves whenever the fields of central Bihar are strewn with corpses could, as a very minimum, campaign for this basic right. You would be surprised how dramatic can be the change in political mood if this were to happen.

Archived from Communalism Combat, April1999, Year 6 No. 53, Comment

Indonesia? Indonesia!

March 31, 1999

Months of communal and ethnic violence rip the social fabric of Indonesia, damaging its centuries’ old tradition of assimilation and toleration

Crowds of bystanders cheered a display of severed heads of Madurese men in Sambas, about 900 km. east of Jakarta in West Kalimantan. One severed head was displayed atop an oil drum with a cigarette stuffed in its nostril. Malays, Dayaks armed with weapons ranging from guns, swords and spears, to farm tools, carried human ears, scalps and hearts as souvenirs." (Reuters news agency report)

This was the latest and most gruesome violence to rock the archipelago which has been the centre of communal, anti–military, separatist and ethnic clashes since last year. Last year ethnic Chinese had been the targets. This time, the local Malays and Dayaks unleashed terror against the migrant Madurese population in the region, who had been brought to West Kalimantan under a government scheme aimed at relieving the population pressure on the relatively poor island of Madura.

About 176 lives were lost in less than one week in Sambas in West Kalimantan province. As the two per cent Madurese population had gained more employment opportunities, the locals became increasingly resentful. Reports came in of some of the ‘victors’ even cutting open their victims’ chests to eat their hearts — customs rooted in their tribal traditions. More than 23,000 Madurese, left homeless in the carnage, have fled in any transport accessible to them.

The army in the meantime has been accused not only of inaction but even collusion with the rampaging mobs. "Police and soldiers did not intervene as rioters in the town of Sambas systematically smashed and burnt home after home. Security forces have passed severed heads in the road without stopping. They have let armed men roar through the town on motorcycles and in lorries… Police pickup trucks have even given lifts to hitchhiking ‘warriors’." (Agence France–Presse).

The recent violence was not the first such eruption. Similar violence in 1996 and early 1997, had claimed about 500 lives according to human rights groups’ estimates. In a country made up of 13,000 islands, with 300 different ethnic groups, such ethnic violence could simply spell chaos, especially since Indonesia is already on the brink of an economic collapse.

Though the recent ethnic violence was what put Indonesia on world headlines, continuing reports of communal violence have already severely marred the image of Indonesia as a tolerant and pluralistic society, whose Muslims were upheld as an example for Muslims world–wide, India especially.

Since November last year, the country has seen Muslim–Christian riots in and around Jakarta, West Timor and more lately, since January this year, in Ambon. In the earlier bout of violence, 1,000 buildings had been burnt down along with 22 mosques and churches. At the height of the violence, some 20,000 people took refuge at military and police stations as well as mosques and churches. Both Christmas and Eid celebrations were marred by riots and attacks on religious places. Some reports state that up to 60 churches had been burnt down in the past six months in Muslim majority provinces.

However, the death toll was not as high as it has been in Ambon, a Christian majority area, where rioting in the past two months has claimed more than 200 lives. In Ambon, the violence first erupted on January 19, and then spread to five neighbouring islands in Maluku province. The violence is considered a reaction to the earlier riots in Muslim majority areas in and around Jakarta. In Ambon, entire villages have been razed to the ground. Tens of thousands of people have been left homeless. Many of the Muslim inhabitants of this Christian majority area have fled.

"We have nothing left. All was burned or stolen. Our relatives were killed. We are leaving for good", said one Muslim evacuee.

Executive director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Sidney Jones, said in a report on the clashes, "Neither community has a monopoly on truth and suffering. The death toll is appallingly high for both sides have seen entire neighbourhoods burned down, and houses of worship destroyed."

Some 30,000 people have been displaced and are living in temporary shelters in and around Ambon. The report by HRW, an American human rights group, also contradicted the picture of communal amity that had always been portrayed by the government. Ambon was portrayed as a region where the interfaith relations had been well protected by a system called pela, where for centuries, a village of one faith had been twinned with a village of the other faith; where Christians helped build mosques and Muslims helped build churches. Tensions between the two communities, Ambonese Christians and Ambonese Muslims and other Muslim immigrants, according to the report, have been high since the 1970s.

The influx of Muslims into Christian majority Ambon and their domination of the commercial scene has left the Ambonese Christians extremely insecure. The HRW report also cites the ‘Islamisation’ that Muslim migrants brought as they built mosques and sought converts to Islam in Christian dominated areas. In heavily Muslim areas of Java and Sumatra, aggressive Protestant evangelism has caused as much resentment as Muslim proselytising has in Christian areas.

Another facet of the communal tension, according to the report is that sections of the Christian population had identified more with the Netherlands than with the Indonesian nationalists at the time of independence from the Dutch in 1945. They mounted a short–lived separatist movement after independence called the Republic of the South Moluccas (RMS). Several of the Muslim villages that have figured prominently in the recent conflict were razed by RMS forces in 1950. In the recent fighting, Muslim leaders had accused the Christians of working with the RMS, thereby portraying them as both militarily organised and disloyal.

Allegations have arisen against the army’s role in the riots as well. A huge demonstration was held against the army, by 3,000 Muslims in Ambon city, accusing the local military commander, Col. Karel Kalahalo, who is a Christian, of displaying anti–Muslim bias. Muslims and Christians have both periodically made such allegation against the army. However, the troops have also been criticised for using extreme measures to break up the riots. HRW points out that while the deaths upto February were a result of the traditional weapons used by rioters, most of the subsequent deaths had been a result of brutal shooting by the 5,000 security forces deployed on the island. The organisation has primarily been demanding investigations into rogue elements in the army, who they suspect were deliberately provoking trouble at former President Suharto’s behest, in order to disrupt the preparations for elections scheduled for June 7 this year and create conditions for a return to military rule.

While officials claim that it is the economic crisis that is fuelling the violence, it is obviously not the only factor, as the economic crisis is not as severe in Maluku, where Ambon is situated, as in some other Indonesian provinces.

One of the key factors in the rising insecurity amongst the minorities of Indonesia is the rise of various fundamentalist Muslim political organisations in the country.

Suharto had repressed overtly ‘Islamic’ political organisations with an iron hand throughout his reign. In the 1990s, however, the Suharto regime began to appoint Muslims over Christians to civil service jobs as part of its campaign to create a political base for itself among Islamic groups. After Suharto’s fall, these organisations have found support amongst the youth base in Indonesia, who are frustrated with the social and political situation prevalent in the country. In fact, many of the youth and student organisations that had played a significant role in toppling the Suharto regime and calling for economic reforms have allied themselves with Islamic organisations. On March 7, an estimated 1,00,000 Muslim students and their supporters took part in a demonstration in Jakarta calling for a holy war (Jehad) against Christians and for the resignation of defence minister, Wiranto, due to the riots in Ambon, which had claimed more Muslim than Christian lives.

Not long ago, many Muslim groups joined forces with youth groups to constitute a civil guard to protect the People’s Consultative Assembly, the country’s highest legislative body. The largest element in the civil guard is the ‘Brigade Hizbullah’, consisting of 1,00,000 youths from 32 Muslim organisations and ‘Furkon’, a Muslim youth organisation linked to the conservative Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI) and to the Indonesian Committee for International Islamic Solidarity (KISDI). Acting President, B.J. Habibie, was himself a member of the ICMI earlier. Thus, the conservatives look towards him with hope for finally realising their dream of an Islamic Indonesian state. Though Habibie has ruled out any declaration of Islamic state, the alliance of religious parties has only gained strength. Those behind this conservative coalition were also responsible for a resolution in early November that declared that only a Muslim male would be acceptable as the next Indonesian President. This not only barred leaders from any minority community from the premier position, but also the popular opposition leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri of the National Awakening Party (PKB) and daughter of freedom fighter Sukarno. Even fellow opposition stalwart, Abdurrahman Wahid, echoed the conservative stand on March 24, and declared that she could not become President as they were tied down to Islamic law in mainly Muslim Indonesia and she should settle for vice presidency or house speakership.

Archived from Communalism Combat, April1999, Year 6 No. 53, Special Report

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Wages of divorce

A hero defamed

A foe in need is a friend indeed

“India and Pakistan will play the war game indefinitely”

India and Pakistan will play the war game indefinitely

What ails Pakistan?

Battles in the mind

Don’t blame Rabri, Laloo

No mainline political party, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal, is really relevant to Jehanabad’s politics of bloody massacres

Indonesia? Indonesia!

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