33% Teaching Posts Vacant, Indian University Crisis Hits Rankings, Teaching, Research

August 16, 2018

Mumbai: India is one of the world’s top five economies and the country with the world’s largest working-age population–around 861 million aged between 15 and 64. These data emphasise why education is critical to India’s future growth.

Yet, a third of teaching posts are vacant in India’s central universities, no Indian university–India has 36.6 million university students–finds a place in the global top 100 and the highest rank achieved this year was 420 by Indian Institute of Science, a five-year low.

Global Rankings Of Indian Universities, 2018-19
World Rank	Institution	National Rank
420	Indian Institute of Science	1
519	Tata Institute of Fundamental Research	2
615	Indian Institute of Technology Bombay	3
651	Indian Institute of Technology Madras	4
671	Indian Institute of Technology Delhi	5
676	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	6
726	University of Delhi	7
732	All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi	8
761	Jadavpur University	9
774	Banaras Hindu University	10

Source: Centre for World University Rankings

The rankings of Indian universities have steadily declined over four years to 2018. In 2014, the highest rank an Indian university reached was 328, in 2015 it was 341, in 2016, it dropped to 354 and in 2017, it was 397.

Highest Rank For An Indian University (World Wide)
Year	Institution	Rank
2018-19	Indian Institute of Science	420
2017	University of Delhi	397
2016	Indian Institute of Technology Delhi	354
2015	Indian Institute of Technology Delhi	341
2014	Indian Institute of Technology Delhi	328

Source: Centre for World University Rankings

These ranks primarily focus on the quantity and quality of research papers–55% of the weightage–how many appear in top-tier or influential journals and how many are cited by other researchers.

Professors play a leading role in conducting academic research, apart from teaching duties. But India is short of professors, with 5,606 posts vacant in central universities, a shortfall of 33%, Satya Pal Singh, minister of state, ministry of human resources development (HRD) told the Lok Sabha (Parliament’s lower house) on July 23, 2018. At the flagship Indian Institutes of Technology, 2,802 (34%) teaching posts are vacant.

Vacancies affect quality of teaching, research

Vacancies have been affecting the quality of teaching and research, professors told IndiaSpend. “For the last 15-20 years, universities have been neglected,” said Laxmi Narayan, a sociology professor from the University of Hyderabad. “There have been no teacher recruitments. A majority of the posts are vacant. When there are no teachers in the university, the quality of education will be low.”

Permanent teachers have the “time and responsibility” for research since they are not concerned with job security, Narayan said. But “nowadays, the entire system is made up of contract teachers”.

Professors who do not have a permanent job–called “ad hocs”–find themselves on a contract that can range from four months to a year. “Recruitments have not taken place for a number of years now,” a Delhi University professor told IndiaSpend on condition of anonymity. “A lot of teachers have been working as ad hocs. The ministry has not given a nod to the recruitment process. Even if the recruitments don’t take place, the teaching has to go on. So a huge number of ad hoc teachers are hired, who don’t have a sense of belonging to the institution.”

The government said recruitment is controlled by universities, and the ministry and Universities Grants Commission only monitor the process. “Occurring and filling up of vacancies is a continuous process,” India’s HRD minister Prakash Javadekar told the Lok Sabha (Parliament’s lower house) on July 23, 2018. “Universities being autonomous institutions, the onus of filling up of vacant teaching posts lies with them.”

“Universities are empowered to take a decision to engage contract faculty, if the recruitment is delayed due to court cases or such other contingencies,” R. Subrahmanyam, secretary of higher education in the HRD ministry, told IndiaSpend over email.

The question of money

Funding appears to be a key issue in filling vacant teaching posts.

“The government says they don’t have enough money to recruit professors,” said Narayan. “So, instead of hiring one permanent teacher, which costs around Rs 100,000 to Rs 150,000, the universities hire three to four contract teachers.”

Western nations typically spend a greater proportion of their budget on higher education and a higher proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) on education, as the chart below indicates.

India spent 4.13% of its GDP on education in 2014, according to HRD Ministry data. This is lower than the UK, US and South Africa–countries that spent 5.68%, 5.22% and 6.05% respectively, of GDP on education. Fifty one of the top 100 universities in 2018-19 were from the US and eight from the UK.

The Indian government does plan to increase higher-education funding, with an increased focus on research. “Government has embarked on improving the funding for research, among other measures, to make the universities more competitive at (the) global level,” said higher-education secretary Subrahmanyam.

(Shreya Raman is a data analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

August 15, 1947- When Indians Were Celebrating Independence, RSS Was Mourning

August 16, 2018

August 15, 1947 was a historical day in the eventful history of India. India got independence after a long and heroic struggle against the British colonial masters. India’s independence was also a milestone in the ongoing anti-imperialist liberation struggles world-over.

In India all those who dreamt of an independent India and survived to see it happen were jubilant and despite gloom due to communal violence celebrated this amazing day with great passion. However, there was one organization, RSS and its foot-soldiers who were not celebrating the birth of a democratic-secular India but mourning its birth.

DENIGRATION OF THE TRICOLOUR ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE
RSS was ruthless in condemning the national Flag, the Tricolour which symbolized the united heroic freedom struggle for an inclusive India. On the eve of independence the RSS mouth-piece, Organizer, in its issue dated August 14, 1947, rejected this choice in the following harsh words:
“The people who have come to power by the kick of fate may give may give in our hands the tricolor but it will never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.”

RSS REJECTED DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR INDIA ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE
The RSS organ Organizer in the same issue (14 August, 1947) rejected the whole concept of a composite nation in an editorial titled ‘Whither’:

“Let us no longer allow ourselves to be influenced by false notions of nationhood. Much of the mental confusion and the present and future troubles can be removed by the ready recognition of the simple fact that in Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and solid foundation, the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations…”

Thus Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Indians following other religions were ousted from the Indian nationhood.

RSS REJECTED DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
The Constituent Assembly of India (CA) on November 26, 1949 adopted a model democratic-secular Constitution for India which was lauded nationally and internationally.

However, there was one significant exception. The Hindutva camp led by RSS which had consciously denigrated the anti-British freedom struggle mourned this historic achievement too. Three days after the CA passed Constitution the RSS’ English organ, Organizer on November 30, 1949, in an editorial, rejected it and demanded the archaic, anti-egalitarian’ Manusmriti, as the constitution. It read:
“But in our Constitution, there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day, his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But tour constitutional pundits that means nothing”.

It is to be noted that Manusmriti decrees a sub-human status to Sudras and women.

The tragedy of the present democratic-secular polity of India is that an organization which openly declared its hatred for the former is ruling India thus presenting the gravest threat to India from within.

Shamsul Islam is a retired Professor of University of Delhi.Email: notoinjustice@gmail.com

15 August: Freedom from Hunger?

August 16, 2018

Food grain availability for Indians has increased by just 3.3% since 1961.

On this 72nd Independence Day of our India, while there will be the usual speeches and festivities, spare a thought to this shocking bit of news: average availability of food grains for every Indian has increased by 3.3% since 1961. Food grains includes wheat, rice, other cereals and pulses. Among these, per person availability of pulses has actually declined by about 10% since 1961.

This should be a sobering thought for everybody whether in the cut-throat world of politics or not. It raises uncomfortable questions of what the priorities of India’s development path are, whether successive govts. have been up to the task of freeing the country from want and hunger and should true nationalism or patriotism not be concerned with this rather than symbolism.

per capita foodgrains.png

Let us dwell for a moment on these numbers, derived from annual Economic Surveys of the govt. and a recent release by the agriculture ministry. Availability does not mean consumption. It means the total amount available after taking into account damage or wastage, use as seeds, exports and imports. Consumption may be even less.

Also, this is an average. It hides, like all averages, the differences between what a rich family will be getting and what a poor one will get. This difference will be quite significant. The poor, which run into millions even by the govt.’s ridiculously low poverty line, get to consume these life-giving food grains much less than the rich. Average nutritional intake among the poorest 5% of the population was just 1633 Kcal in rural areas and 1637 Kcal in urban areas, revealed an NSSO report for 2011-12, the last of its kind. The richest 5% of the population consumes 2233 Kcal in rural areas and 2206 Kcal in urban areas on an average.

As the chart above shows, the highest availability level of 510 grams per day (gpd) was reached in 1991. Since then, it has come down to 484 gpd, a dip of about 5%. Since 1961, availability of pulses – one of the key sources of proteins for Indians – has declined from 69 gpd to 54.5 gpd.

It is true that while looking at nutritional intake of Indians, other food items too need to be considered, like eggs and milk, availability of both of which has increased significantly since Independence. But surveys indicate that this replacement of foodgrains by say, milk or eggs, is highly exaggerated by both govt. propaganda and public perception. Contributions of these items to nutritional intake are not increasing much over the past three decades, despite enormous increase in production.

For instance, the NSSO Survey report mentioned earlier reveals that contribution of milk and milk products to protein intake was 8.8% in 1993-94 which inched up to 10% in 2011-12, in rural areas while in urban areas it increased from 11.66% to 12%. For eggs, meat and fish (taken together as a category), the contribution was just 3.66% in 1993-94 and increased to 7% in 2011-12 in rural areas while in urban areas it increased from 5.29% to 9%.

So why this paradox of increasing production and hence, increasing availability, yet not much change in nutritional intake? This is happening because of the endemic inability of the vast majority of population to buy certain kinds of food – like milk and eggs, etc. In other words, it is persistent poverty.

The skew in consumption of milk and eggs etc. between the rich and poor is much more marked than for cereals. The NSSO survey found that among the poorest 10% of population just 3% of the protein intake comes from milk and another 3% from eggs, meat and fish, in rural areas. At the other end, among the richest 10% of population, 15% of their protein is coming from milk and another 9% from eggs, etc. In urban areas the differences are even more marked.

For the vast majority of population, food grains are still the main source of nutrition. And, average availability has remained the same for decades. In fact, the imposition of Aadhaar linking of ration cards has become another source of deprivation leading to at least 15 starvation deaths.

In sum, 71 years after the tryst with destiny, India still grapples with the biggest slavery of all – hunger. None of the policies and the slogans – whether ‘garibi hatao’ or ‘sabka vikas’ – have made much of a dent. And, the new slogans of ultra-nationalism too seem to be unconcerned about the people. They are more worried about the flag and the anthem and the cows. Indians still await their destiny.

Massive Tel Aviv protest sees Palestinians and Jews in solidarity against nation-state law

August 14, 2018

Tens of thousands of protesters, both Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel, took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to protest the country’s widely condemned “Nation State Law.”

A Palestinian holds a poster saying “the nation state bill is official apartheid” in two languages. Photo from Simone Zimmerman.

Passed last month, the law officially declared Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and, among other things, made Hebrew the singular national language. The move was appladued by Israel’s right-wing government, which praised it as finally affirming the “Jewish character” of Israel.

Critics, local and international, however, have criticized the law, saying it turned Israel’s nearly 2 million non-Jewish citizens — both Palestinians and other minorities — into second-class citizens, by prioritizing Israel as a Jewish state over a democratic one.

About 30,000 protesters gathered in the Rabin Square in Tel Aviv and marched through the streets of the city towards the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where the main rally, entitled “Abolish Nation-state Law – Yes to Equality,” took place.

Protesters called for the cancellation of the law and held signs calling on people to fight against apartheid.

Many activists and journalists tweeting about the protests commented that it was possibly the largest display of protests and solidarity between Israelis and Palestinians in Israel’s history.

Photos of the massive crowds showed people flying Israeli, Palestinian, and Druze flags, despite several reports saying that the protest organizers — The Arab Higher Monitoring Committee — specifically requested that flags not be flown, seemingly to appease liberal Zionists who threatened to boycott the protest if Palestinian flags were featured.

Nevertheless, many of the demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, while some chanted popular national slogans, including “With spirit, with blood we shall redeem you, Palestine!”

On his personal Twitter account, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted a video of said protesters, saying “There is no better evidence of the necessity of the nationality law.”

Jafar Farah, Director of the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel, who was at the protest, told Mondoweiss that the show of Palestinian symbols at the protest was “extremely powerful.”

Jafir Farah at march in Tel Aviv against nation state law. Photo by Yumna Patel

“To take our Palestinian flag and symbols to Tel Aviv and tell the Jewish population what we think of this legislation, and to tell them that we will not accept second class citizenship, it was a powerful feeling,” Farah said.

“It was the first time that the Palestinian community moved in buses from our towns and villages to the middle of a Jewish center, Tel Aviv, to challenge the public discourse in Israel,” he told Mondoweiss.

When asked about Netanyahu’s and the Israeli response to the Palestinian flags and chants at the march, Farah said he was happy that it got the attention of the PM.

“The fact that Bibi was talking about it is a success in itself,” he said, highlighting the importance of creating a discourse in Israeli society, and getting Israelis to talk about and acknowledge Palestinian symbols, heritage, and history.

“We came with the Palestinian flag to say we are Palestinians, this country is our country, and if you like it or not, the future of this country will take into consideration that Palestine is not only about the occupied territories.”

Farah stressed to Mondoweiss that the symbols of the state is one of the core issues outlined in the Nation State law, which say that the state’s symbols are the Israeli flag, and that the name of the state will be called Israel, and nothing else.

“The marginalization of the Palestinian community, which has been happening since 1948, is also taking place through this designation of the symbols of the state,” Farah said, when asked why it was so important for Palestinians to raise their flags and wear kuffiyehs at the march.
“What we can offer to the Jewish population is peace based on reconciliation and truth, not peace based on separation,” Farah told Mondoweiss.

“The peace that has been offered to us has excluded and separated us. This is not peace. We are here, we are Palestinians, and we are not planning to go away.”

Yumna Patel is a multimedia freelance journalist based in Bethlehem, Palestine. You can find her on twitter @yumna_patel.

Courtesy: https://mondoweiss.net/

We will not be scared into silence: Umar Khalid and Dr. Kafeel Khan

August 14, 2018

“There is no evidence, only lies. There has been no charge-sheet, only media-trial. There are no arguments, only trolling. There has been no debate, only death threats,” says Umar Khalid.

Image Courtey: PTI

New Delhi: Umar Khalid, a student activist and Ph.D Scholar from JNU was shot at near Constitution Club in New Delhi on August 13, two days before Independence Day. He escaped unhurt and continued to participate in the ‘Khauf se Azaadi’ (Freedom from Fear) event right after the incident.

He released a statement about the threat to his life and said “The question also is what does “freedom” even mean if the citizens of this country have to be ready to die for their “crime” of just being vocal against injustice?”

“If something untoward would have happened yesterday, or if it were to happen tomorrow, then do not just hold that “unidentified gunman” responsible. The real culprits are those who from their seats of power have been breeding an atmosphere of hatred, of bloodlust and fear. The real culprits are those who have provided an atmosphere of complete impunity for assassins and mob lynchers. The real culprits are those spokespersons of the ruling party and the prime time anchors and TV channels who have spread canards about me, branded me anti-national based on lies and virtually incited a lynch-mob against me,” he said.

Talking to Sabrang India, Dr. Kafeel Khan spoke about his experience at the same event and how it unfolded. “I was also attending the Freedom from Fear event yesterday. After the initial commotion, the program was delayed by a few hours but it still took place. We discussed how the whole environment in India has changed. Umar was shot at in a posh and safe place like Lutyens in Delhi and that too before Independence Day when security is on high alert. Even I had received a death threat on August 5 on my cell phone which said that I will be killed next. This happened right after my own brother was shot at. I am not scared and I will not be silent. I will continue to speak out against injustice. I still haven’t got my job back even after it was proven that the deaths at BRD medical hospital occurred due to oxygen failure. The people responsible still hold their post. In the name of religion and caste, hatred and violence are being promoted. We will continue to spread the message of unity, peace and love,” he said.

Umar Khalid sent a tweet to PM Modi in response to his public message asking for speech ideas for 15^th August. “Modi Ji, you had asked for suggestions for your IDay speech. I have a suggestion to make – can you please state that you guarantee that there will be no attack on those who criticize your govt & its many failures,” he said.

https://twitter.com/UmarKhalidJNU/status/1029207383933763584

The suspected unidentified gunman was caught on CCTV cameras after dropping the gun used to shoot at Umar. Khalid, Khan, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Najeeb Jung’s mother Fatima Nafees, Junaid’s (lynched by mob) mother and wife of Aleemuddin among others were present at the event organised by a collective named ‘United Against Hate.’

Full text of Umar’s statement:

They cant scare us into silence!

(My statement on the attempt on my life, yesterday)

With the repeated death threats against my life, and having seen the assassinations of one activist after the other in the last few years, I somehow knew that someday a gun may be turned against me too. Dhabolkar, Kalburgi, Pansare, Gauri Lankesh…the list of assassinations has been ever-growing. But can I say that I was ready for this? Can anyone ever say that they are ready for such an eventuality for real? No. And two days before 15th August, the question also is what does “freedom” even mean if the citizens of this country have to be ready to die for their “crime” of just being vocal against injustice? What is most paradoxical is that I had gone to attend an event named “Freedom from Fear” today when an unidentified gunman attacked me and tried to kill me in front of the Constitution Club.

The fact that two days before Independence Day, in one of the most “High Security” zones of the national capital, an armed assailant could dare to attack me in broad daylight only goes onto show the brazen impunity that some people feel they enjoy under the present regime. I do not know who he was or who are the forces behind him. That is for the police to investigate. But I want to state here that if something untoward would have happened yesterday, or if it were to happen tomorrow, then do not just hold that “unidentified gunman” responsible. The real culprits are those who from their seats of power have been breeding an atmosphere of hatred, of bloodlust and fear. The real culprits are those who have provided an atmosphere of complete impunity for assassins and mob lynchers. The real culprits are those spokespersons of the ruling party and the prime time anchors and TV channels who have spread canards about me, branded me anti-national based on lies and virtually incited a lynch-mob against me. This has specifically made my life extremely vulnerable.

Even today, even after the police has registered an offence under Section 307 and Arms Act, why is it that a MP from BJP, Meenakshi Lekhi and other saffron agents online are trying to suggest that the attack never happened, or worse that I engineered it on my own? Even as I haven’t pointed fingers at anyone, why are they so desperate to twist the narrative? What should this desperation be taken as a sign of? Their own culpability? Well, if one is to just look into the murder of Gauri Lankesh as an example, the arrests one after the other clearly exposes the hands of Hindutva terror outfits. So when we say “unidentified gunmen”, what is important is to identify the real players behind these terror attacks.

This hate campaign against me has been going on for last two years. There is no evidence, only lies. There has been no charge-sheet, only media-trial. There are no arguments, only trolling. There has been no debate, only death threats. And today it has all come down to a gun. Why is it that hashtags like “Tukde Tukde” has literally become a prefix to my name, whereas BJP leaders openly support those who say they will do “tukde tukde” of the country if a certain movie is released? Why is that I am called an anti-national and subjected to a never ending media trial, but there is no outrage against those who burnt the Constitution in the heart of the capital, in the presence of the Delhi police just a few days back? Why is it that those who are hell-bent on polarizing the country by hate-mongering against the minorities and by felicitating mob-lynchers are respected, revered and garlanded? And we who speak against hatred are villainized? Why is it that those who speak of dividing the society in the name of caste and attack the dalits – the likes of Shambhaji Bhide, whom PM Modi calls a mahapurush- are not accused of breaking the country to pieces? Why is it that the people in power who want to sell off this country piece by piece to big corporates at the cost of the poor, are celebrated as deshbhakts and their critics deemed as “anti-nationals”? These are all relevant questions today.

If they believe that with attacks like this they are going to scare us into silence, then they are gravely mistaken. The ideas of Gauri Lankesh, the ideas Rohith have outlived them. They cannot browbeat us into silence, neither with their jails, nor with their bullets. We proved it yesterday itself. Despite the attack on me, the program Khauf Se Azaadi (Freedom from Fear) by United Against Hate was successfully held in the Constitution Club. Najeeb’s mother Fatima Nafees, the wife of Alimuddin (whose killers Union Minister Jayant Sinha garlanded recently) Maryam, the mother of Junaid (16 year old lynched on a train last year) Fatima, Rakbar Khan’s brother Akbar, Dr Kafeel Khan along with Prashant Bhushan, Prof. Apoorvanand, SR Darapuri, Manoj Jha and many others addressed the gathering raising their voice against hatred, lynchings and the terror spread by these saffron terror. That is the spirit of our resistance.

I also wish to reiterate the demand that the Delhi Police should provide me with security as there is a continuous threat to my life. In the last two years, I have demanded police protection twice from the Delhi Police, but only to be met with a callous response. I have been given death threats several times in the past and receive several threats and inciteful messages everyday on social media. After yesterday’s incident, what is the Delhi Police waiting for? I appeal to all democratic forces to pressurize the Delhi Police to provide me with security, as it is no longer possible for me to go anywhere anymore without security.

I thank the countless well-wishers and co-fighters of justice who have stood by me and spoken out against this cowardly act. This is a collective fight for democracy that we all are part of, and we shall certainly defeat the followers of Savarkar and Godse. Tomorrow while there will be once again a shower of high voltage lies and sugar-coated jumlas from the ramparts of the Dalmia Group’s Red Fort, our fight for real freedom and dignity, and making the dreams of Bhagat Singh and Babasaheb Ambedkar into a reality will continue with greater resolve.

Jai Bhim, Lal Salaam
Umar Khalid.

Multicultural Nationalism

August 14, 2018

Does multicultural nationalism represent the political idea and tendency most likely to offer a feasible alternative rallying point to monocultural nationalism?

Bristol, 2014. Flickr/ Evgeni. Some rights reserved.

Tariq Modood, Bhikhu Parekh, Nasar Meer and Varun Uberoi and other scholars associated with the University of Bristol’s Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship represent a distinctive and important school of multicultural political thought. Thanks go to Sage Journal ‘Ethnicities’ for giving us three months’ access to this background account of the ‘Bristol school of multiculturalism’ by Geoffrey Brahm Levey, which situates the Bristol school in the British context in which it arose, outlines its distinctive approach and principles and critically assesses its positions on liberalism and national identity. Levey explains how the school challenges the liberal biases of much of the corpus of multicultural political thinking and the nostrums of British and other western democracies regarding the status of the majority culture as well as of cultural minorities.

There is a lot of nationalism about today. So, Rosemary Bechler is doing us an important service in raising the question of monocultural nationalism in the openDemocracy debate about the rise of the hard right in liberal democracies.

Yet, what is often described as ‘a new nationalism’ arguably looks like the old nationalism. What is emerging as genuinely new are the identity-based nationalisms of the centre-left, sometimes called ‘liberal nationalism’ or ‘progressive patriotism’. I want to tell you about one such progressive view, what I call multicultural nationalism.
To get there, not only do I need to get you to think of nationalism in a new way but also multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism

You may think that multiculturalism is about persons valuing their personal diversity, having multiple identities – like Londoner, young, woman, with parents who are Indian and Scottish – and mixing freely with others who are equally mixed and who together produce ever changing further mixes. On this view group identities – forcing you to choose one over all others, e.g., having to be a good Indian girl or being Scottish but not British – can be stifling. And the worst kind are those that demand a singular loyalty to the nation.

On this view of multiculturalism, we should think of ourselves as citizens of the world and we should be free to live and work and travel to wherever we want to and so our policy goal should be to eliminate national borders. That is one version of multiculturalism. Let’s call it cosmopolitanism. It’s not the version of multiculturalism that I hold.

Multiculturalism, as I understand it, is the idea that equality in the context of ‘difference’ cannot be achieved by individual rights or equality as sameness but has to be extended to include the positive inclusion of marginalised groups marked by race and their own sense of ethnocultural identities. It is not opposed to integration but emphasizes the importance of respecting diverse identities. It should be understood as a mode of integration, just as assimilation is another mode of integration.

No state, including liberal democracies, is culturally neutral – all states support a certain language(s), a religious calendar in respect of national holidays, the teaching of religion(s) in schools and/or the funding of faith schools, certain arts, sports and leisure activities and so on. Naturally enough this language, religion, arts, sport and so on will be that of the majority population. For multiculturalism, it is a matter of extending this valued condition – of creating a society based on one’s cultural identity – to include minorities; minimally, the predominance that the cultural majority enjoys in the shaping of the national culture, symbols and institutions should not be exercised in a non-minority accommodating way. The distinctive goal of what we might call ‘multicultural nationalism’ is to allow people to hold, adapt, hyphenate, fuse and create identities important to them in the context of their being not just unique individuals but members of socio-cultural, ethnoracial and ethnoreligious groups, as well as national co-citizens.

So, note that I have now brought in two things that were missing from cosmopolitanism: firstly, the idea of a group identity, of belonging to an ethnoracial or ethnocultural or ethnoreligious group, of not just being a free-floating individual, mixing and matching elements of other people’s cultures. I have introduced the idea of having some rooted identity of your own, an identity that has to be shared because it is part of a group heritage or group membership, and which matters to people and which they want to pass on to the next generation and see it survive and flourish into the future.

Secondly, I have brought in the idea of national co-citizens: people who share a country, people who belong here and who care about their country. That country is not just another place on the map or workplace opportunity: it is where they belong, it is their country. So, on the version of multiculturalism I am now presenting, people can have group identities and they have attachments to specific countries – they are not just citizens of the world.

But of course that country – Britain – may not allow all its citizens to feel British, to be accepted as British; some may be treated as foreigners, or the wrong colour, second-class citizens. Multiculturalism is about changing that – it is, amongst other things, about ‘Rethinking the national story’. This was the most important – yet the most misunderstood – message of the report of the Commission on Multi-Ethnic Britain in 2000; chaired by Lord Professor Bhikhu Parekh. It argued that the post-immigration challenge was not simply eliminating racial discrimination or alleviating racial disadvantage, important as these were to an equality strategy. Rather, the deeper challenge was to find inspiring visions of Britain – which showed us where we were coming from and where we were going, how history had brought us together and what we could make of our shared future.

No one should be rejected as culturally alien and not sufficiently British because of their ethnicity or religion but rather we had to reimagine Britain so that, for example, Muslims could see that Islam was part of Britain; and equally importantly, so that non-Muslims, especially secularists and Christians could see Muslims were part of the new, evolving Britishness.

Given that majoritarian nationalism seems to be the dominant politics in so many parts of the world today (in Russia, China, India, many Muslim-majority countries as well as the USA and across Europe) we have to come up with a better nationalism. I suggest that multicultural nationalism unites the concerns of some of those currently sympathetic to majoritarian nationalism and those who are pro-diversity and minority accommodationist in the way that liberalism (with its emphasis on individualism and national majorities) nor cosmopolitanism (with its disavowal of national belonging and championing of global open borders) does not. Multicultural nationalism therefore represents the political idea and tendency most likely to offer a feasible alternative rallying point to monocultural nationalism.

Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol and a Fellow of the British Academy. His latest books include Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea and as co-editor The Problem of Religious Diversity: European Challenges, Asian Approaches.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net

Rahul Gandhi bats for Sukalo and Kismatiya

August 14, 2018

Campaign by CJP and AIUFWP for Adivasis of Sonebhadra draws attention of political parties
A campaign by CJP and All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) for the release of dynamic forest rights movement leaders Sukalo Gond and Kismatiya Gond is gaining momentum every day. Now, Congress President Rahul Gandhi has tweeted expressing concern over their illegal arrest by Uttar Pradesh (UP) government and has appealed to Congress leaders and MLAs in the state to take up and raise the matter very seriously.

This one tweet has helped draw attention to the issue of their illegal arrests once again.

CJP has been closely following how Adivasi women of Sonbhadra, UP, who are a part of a peaceful struggle for land rights, are being systematically bullied and harassed. Many of them have fake cases filed against them on false or trumped up charges. CJP stands with the AIUFWP in their demand for the immediate implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. Support these brave women, who are determined to get their rights despite hailing from oppressed, vulnerable and marginalised communities, by donating here.

Not to be left behind, the Samajwadi Party (SP) too expressed support for the movement. SP spokesperson Rajesh Chaudhary issued a statement saying that the party’s National President and former Chief Minister of UP, Akhilesh Yadav has met a committee from AIUFWP under the leadership of the MLA Sanjay Garg and taken cognisance of the constant police violence being faced by the villagers in the Sonebhadra area.

Kismatiya Gond (Secretary, Forest Rights Committee), Sukalo Gond (Treasurer of AIUFWP) and Sukhdev Gond were picked up in a clandestine manner from Chopan railway station by the Sonbhadra police on June 8, 2018. They were arrested just as they were returning after a meeting with the state forest minister, Dara Singh Chauhan and the Forest Secretary in Lucknow in which the minister had assured that he would look into the matter of previous police assaults on Lilasi villagers in connivance with the Forest Department.

CJP, with the AIUFWP had moved the Allahabad High Court seeking the immediate production and release of the illegally detained Adivasi women leaders, Sukalo Gond and Kismatiya Gond.

Earlier, on May 18 the UP police picked up and detained Adivasis from Lilasi, kept them for the entire day at Myorpur thana and made them go through harrowing procedures for the rest of the day. Later, on May 22, they entered the village, and engaged in a completely unwarranted assault on women and children, in which Kismatiya Gond had sustained severe head injuries. Bulk FIRs were filed against the villagers on the pretext of an “afforestation project,” the details of which wasn’t known to anybody! Even though Sukalo wasn’t present during the episodes of assaults by the police, and her name was nowhere mentioned in the FIRs, she was arrested.

On AIUFWP and CJP’s intervention, the NHRC had issued notifications to the DM of Sonbhadra to look into the violent onslaught of UP police and forest department. However, the feudal nexus of the Government, the forest department and big landholders is carrying on its oppressive onslaught with impunity.

WATCH: Two young girls from India and Pakistan sing each other’s national anthems

August 14, 2018

For Independence day, the video brings together national anthems not only as a tribute to the cause of freedom and liberation from colonial rule but also for the cause of peace in the sub-continent.

On the occasion of 72^nd Independence Day of Pakistan ( 14^th August) and India (15^th August), Members of the 25-year-old Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD) released a video on YouTube. The video has two young girls from Indi and Pakistan singing each other’s National Anthems.

The video titled “Two Nations, Two Anthems and One Dream,” is produced by friends of Media Collective-Delhi, for PIPFPD. “The video brings together two young girls, singing enthusiasts, who are singing each other’s anthems not only as a tribute to the cause of freedom and liberation from colonial rule – but also for the cause of peace in the sub-continent. Their unadulterated awe for the cause blinds the small pronunciation mistakes they make while singing in languages they don’t speak, which is among the most beautiful diversities of the region. We hope you celebrate freedom, peace and reiterate democracy in India and Pakistan, singing along with our young champs and sharing this work of young friends of both countries,” PIPFPD said.

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WATCH: Two young girls from India and Pakistan sing each other’s national anthems

For Independence day, the video brings together national anthems not only as a tribute to the cause of freedom and liberation from colonial rule but also for the cause of peace in the sub-continent.

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