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Rebel and her cause

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MEENA Keshwar Kamal (1957-1987) was born in 1957 in Kabul. During her school days, students in Kabul and other Afghan cities were deeply engaged in social activism and rising mass movements. She left the university to devote herself as a social activist to organizing and educating women.

In pursuit of her cause for gaining the right of freedom of expression and conducting political activities, Meena laid the foundation of RAWA in 1977. This organization was meant to give voice to the deprived and silenced women of Afghanistan. She started a campaign against the Russian forces and their puppet regime in 1979 and organized numerous processions and meetings in schools, colleges and Kabul University to mobilize public opinion.

Another great service rendered by her for the Afghan women is the launching of a bilingual magazine, Payam–e–Zan (Women’s Message) in 1980. Through this magazine, RAWA has been projecting the cause of Afghan women boldly and effectively.

Payam–e–Zan has constantly exposed the criminal nature of fundamentalist groups. Meena also established Watan Schools for refugee children, a hospital and handicraft centers for refugee women in Pakistan to support Afghan women financially.

I’m the woman who has awoken

I’ve arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of my burnt children

I’ve arisen form the rivulets of my brother’s blood

My nation’s wrath has empowered me

My ruined and burnt villages replete me with hatred against the enemy

O’ compatriot, no longer regard me weak and incapable,

My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women

My fists are clenched with fists of thousands compatriots

To break together all these sufferings all these fetters of slavery.

I’m the woman who has awoken,

I’ve found my path and will never return.

— Meena Keshwar Kamal

Her active social work and effective advocacy against the views of the fundamentalists and the puppet regime provoked the wrath of the Russians and the fundamentalist forces alike and she was assassinated by KGB agents and their fundamentalist accomplices in Quetta, Pakistan, on February 4,1987.

(Amnesty International’s inves-tigations subsequent to her killing “strongly indicate that the assassins may have been closely linked to the Hizb–e–Islami)..

 

The government RAWA wants

Our concept of a government in Afghanistan is very sim ple: it should be based on democratic values and it should ensure freedom of thought, religion and expression and safeguard womens’ rights. It is an obvious fact that the fundamentalists of all kinds use the name of Islam to justify and legitimize their violent madness. Therefore RAWA stands for separation of religion and political process in Afghanistan. Though the fanatic groups label secularism as a ‘communistic’ idea and ‘faith of the infidels’, RAWA firmly believes that only a government with secular orientation can thwart the nefarious designs of these reactionaries from the Dark Ages. It is only through a secular government that the religion of Islam can be prevented from being used as a retrogressive tool in the hands of fanatics. The people of Afghanistan, are Muslims for the past many centuries and they would not let gangs of rapists, murderers and traitors to teach them their faith with a stick once again.

RAWA on the hejab

Besides being mentioned in the Holy Quran, veil is also a part of our culture as it is indeed in Russia and other non-Muslim countries of this region. However, it is the inability of the fundamentalists to understand and improve the economic conditions of the masses which makes them engage themselves in a shameless, cruel and inhuman drive to impose hejab. This is an attempt on the part of the fundamentalists to suppress our women and deprive them of their basic rights. We hold that nobody has the right to instruct Afghan men to grow beard or force the Afghan women to wear hejab. As a token of defiance, and without assigning any priority to it, we will resist wearing veil in the manner the fanatics want us to.

(Communalism Combat Archives: Story from November 1998.)

Match for the mullahs

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(We reproduce below, a news report published by a Pakistani newspaper on a RAWA demonstration)

 Police restrain Taleban attacking RAWA procession
(The News, April 29,1998)

PESHAWAR: Police resorted  to teargas shelling and baton charge Tuesday to disperse Afghan Taleban who 
 attacked a procession of Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and caused injuries to several women.

The Peshawar police, which accompanied the procession right from Shaheen Town to the Defense Colony, swung into action soon after the Taleban attacked the process-ionists and chased and beat them up. The police also arrested 13 of them.

The RAWA procession comprising some 250 women and girl students of the local Afghan schools was attacked near Tambwano Chowk on Jamrud Road by a group of over a dozen stick–wielding Taleban. At least 10 women received injuries, three of whom were rushed to hospital for first aid.

The women showed extreme courage by raising highly charged slogans against the ‘fundamentalists’ and retaliated with sticks and stones in self–defence rather than running for shelter. They were joined by some of the men, both Afghans and Pakistanis, accompanying the procession. “We wanted to convey to the ‘fundamentalists’ that women can fight for their rights,” remarked an emotional RAWA leader Nasima Bareen. The attackers were overpowered by police in no time.

Mindful of the wrath of the Taleban and other Afghan groups, the RAWA organizers had arranged bundles of sticks in advance for observing the “6th black anniversary” of what the organization termed “swarming of fundamentalist criminals into Kabul on April 28,1992.”

Despite tension and fears of recurrence of the happening, the processionists did not disperse and reached their destination chanting slogans and playing patriotic songs through a loudspeaker. “Nothing can be achieved in today’s Afghanistan without sacrifice,” commented another RAWA leader, Jamila Habib.

The situation would have taken yet another ugly turn had the 300 stick–wielding Taleban both Afghans and Pakistanis from the nearby Jamia Imdad–ul–Uloom Islamia of Masjid–I–Darwish reached the scene of incident on time. After having heard about the incident, the Taleban rushed there but by then the Afghan women had dispersed peacefully.

The angry Taleban blocked the main Peshawar–Jamrud road near Peshawar Club for sometime and searched the passenger buses for the Afghan women who took part in the procession. The Taleban procession marched to the Tambwano Chowk and disrupted traffic on the busy University Road.

The prominent feature of the RAWA procession, which traversed a distance of two kilometres, was the hanging of the effigies of five Afghan leaders atop a vehicle. They included Taleban spiritual leader Mulla Mohammad Omar, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Hezb–I–Wahdat chief Ustad Karim Khalili and Uzbek warlord Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum.

The RAWA leaders said these Afghan leaders “playing in foreign hands” were responsible for the on–going genocide in Afghanistan. The Taleban chief Mullah Omar was depicted as a “pirate.”

The Afghan women were all praise for the local police who took timely action to trace down the attacking Taleban despite the fact that no proper permission had been secured for staging the demonstration in Peshawar by RAWA.

It was the Quetta–based RAWA’s third show in the city. The main target of the speeches and sloganeering of the processionists were the Taleban, who were blamed as “stooges of Pakistan”.

The young schoolgirls were more vocal in condemning the Afghan leaders. “Marg bar (death for) Taleban, marg bar Rabbani, marg bar Hekmatyar, marg bar Masud, marg bar Khalili, marg bar Dostum, marg bar Sayyaf, marg bar Akbari” were the slogans which echoed all the way on the route of the procession. The RAWA members also condemned the alleged interference by Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan’s affairs.    

(Communalism Combat Archives: Story from November 1998.)

Uncle Sam sins

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If we get access to the archives at Langley (headquarters of the CIA), we would find one particular manual possibly written in the late 1940s. This manual would perhaps have been xeroxed many times, since it seems to have been used almost every few years by the unimaginative, but effective, CIA. Like other manuals, it will probably be bound in a bold colour with large black letters that say something like “Manual for Counter-Insurgency: How to Manufacture An Enemy Who Once Was An Asset.”

During the Reagan and Bush (1980–92) years, the CIA operatives and analysts kept that particular manual on their desks on the alert as they remade the lives of their former allies into newfound enemies. Manuel Noriega, for instance, was a valuable CIA asset inside the Panamanian military right upto the US invasion of that country in December 1989 in which the marines arrested the sovereign, but corrupt, leader and incarcerated him in the US. This was a preview of the Gulf War of 1991. 

After the Iranian revolution and the taking of US hostages by the Islamic republic, the US was bent upon vengeance against Iran.  With financial and military support, the US pressured Iraq to test its mettle against its neighbour, always clear, however, that Iraq must not be allowed to gain too much power in the region (hence, the tacit allowance given to Israel when it conducted its pre–emptive strike against the Osirak reactors in northern Iraq on 7 June 1981).  During the Iran-Iraq conflict, the US emerged as the main support for Saddam Hussein, who, incidentally, was closely allied with Kuwait. 

During these years, Hussein discharged the communist left and persecuted the Kurds, both events well-known to the Washington.  In fact, prior to Hussein, the Ba’athists entered Iraqi history “on an American train” (in the words of Ali Saleh Al-Sa’di, secretary general of the party in the 1960s) with a commitment to crush the popular and extensive Communist Party of Iraq.  Hussein relied upon the silent approval of the US when he told US envoy April Glaspie of his intent to invade Kuwait in 1990 (reported by the New York Times, September 23, 1991). 

He miscalculated, since the CIA already drew out our famous manual, partly to ensure that Iraq not challenge US–Israeli hegemony over the region and over oil, but also to ensure that the US President Bush (previously head of the CIA) coast into a second presidential term in 1992 (Bush, like Churchill, won the war, but lost the election).

Osama Bin Laden, a minor player in the world of Islamic fundamentalism, has now attained the stature of Noreiga and Hussein due to the 75 (misguided) cruise missiles that struck Afghanistan and Sudan.  Very quickly after the attack, the leading US papers reported that not only was Bin Laden a close associate of the CIA during the Afghan conflict, but the very bases used by Bin Laden (near Kunar in the Bakhtiar mountains) in that country had been built by the CIA as part of its assistance to the Mujahidin factions.

In the 1980s, the US spent about $6 billion on these commandos in its quest to wrest Afghanistan from both the left inside the nation and from the Soviet orbit. The US was joined in this anti–communist crusade by Zia–ul–Haq’s military regime (a man famous for his participation in the 1970 Black September massacre in Jordan) and the Saudi monarchy.  From the latter, the US was able to gain the fellowship of a young Saudi man, Bin Laden, who came from a wealthy family ($5 billion) with much zeal. The Saudi’s Rabitat al–Alam al–Islami (Muslim World League) provided tremendous resources towards the Mujahidin. Osama Bin Laden, through his Islamic Salvation Foundation, was able to bring monies and hardware into Afghanistan and he mobilized many young people, with CIA support, through his “Afghan International” (Washington Post, June 20, 1986). His net worth of $300 million is now committed to the removal of the US from West Asia, a goal set in motion by his disgust at the Gulf War. 

There is incidentally little firm proof that Bin Laden had anything to do with the acts of terror in East Africa.  If we believe the US experts who make this claim, then we may need to recall that most of them felt that the Oklahoma City bombing was conducted by an Arab: “I think as we sort through the evidence, in my judgement,” said Larry Johnson, a regular counter terrorism expert at the US State Department, “this has the hallmarks of Islamic ties” (CNN, April 20, 1995). The bombers, it turned out, were white supremacists. Also the CIA only recently claimed it knew nothing of India’s nuclear tests and yet, it can now claim to know exactly where its erstwhile asset resides in the mountainous Afghanistan!

There is little consideration of the production of these people by the amoral foreign policy of the US. 

(Vijay Prashad is assistant professor, International Studies, at Trinity College, Hartford, USA

And others pay for them 

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Under the UN sanctions, casualties include not only Iraq’s self– sufficiency and its modern, secular society, with its advanced medical and educational systems, but also the progressive lives of eight million Iraqi women, who find themselves forced into social contracts which they thought ended a century ago.

In the long struggle between Iraq and the US, Iraqi women have been the most harmed of that nation’s beleaguered masses. Like men, of course, they’ve lost opportunities and seen their living standard plummet. But they’ve also been forced into social contracts which they thought ended a century ago.

Seven years of sanctions have desiccated more than bombs could. The casualties include not only Iraq’s modern, secular society, with its advanced medical and educational systems, self–sufficiency, university research, and child vaccination programmes, but also the progressive lives of eight million Iraqi women. 

Before 1990, Iraq had an exemplary policy of educating women and opening the professions to them. Before the Gulf War, women were found in all sectors of life. But in the years since then, those gains have been reversed. It’s well–known that women everywhere endure a double victimisation during war.  

As far as we know, Iraqi women were not raped — not directly. But as a result of war conditions ignited by the sanctions, they’ve lost many of the rights they had — even under Saddam Hussein. And let us be clear. The UN sanctions, now in their eighth year, are a terrible form of war. The economic embargo on Iraq, policed by the US, is proving to be the most punitive and strictly enforced in human history. 

Well over a million civilians -– mostly children — have perished, all of them needless deaths created by a lack of food and medicine. Hundreds of thousands of children are stunted or retarded due to disease and malnutrition, while war–related pollution and contamination has pushed up cancer rates. At least four million Iraqis have fled the country, seeking refuge elsewhere.

An unreported effect of the sanctions — and another reason to consider them a weapon of war — is the social disruption they’ve created. Over the past seven years, Iraq has experienced a complete economic breakdown and class upheaval.

As a result, fewer jobs are available to women. With the collapsed economy, unemployment rose. To secure work, men travelled to other parts of the country or emigrated in search of work. Employers also began to give priority to young men for the few available places. Even so, inflation (a 6000 per cent increase since 1990) is so high and salaries so low that families haven’t been able to manage.

To help their parents, young men delay marriage. And any boy with dreams of emigrating in search of a new life (according to reports, 2,00,000 single men have already left for New Zealand) isn’t likely to marry before leaving. So, Iraq’s male–female ratio is now unbalanced and young women find themselves without a choice of partners. 
Within Arab society, women are under immense pressure to marry, especially if they have no profession. Meanwhile, sexual contact outside marriage is hardly possible. The chronic dilemma has intensified, increasing already overwhelming burdens. 

Societies have different ways of absorbing strain. Sometimes the adjustment is positive, sometimes not. In Iraq’s case, coping with the gender imbalance created by the sanctions has led some families to adopt polygamy as a solution for their daughters’ limited marriage prospects. To secure their daughters a future as mothers and some kind of economic security, parents are offering their daughters as second, junior wives. The marriages are legal.
Arranged by the family, they generally involve an older man already supporting a wife and children. The first wife objects and protests, but many men welcome such arrangements. Though sanctioned in Iraqi religious law, for many decades polygamy wasn’t practised in most parts of the country. In fact, multiple wives were discouraged by both the state and educated society. Today, however, due to social upheaval, a woman has less leverage to refuse a second wife. And parents who never would have allowed it in their youth see polygamy as a solution. It’s a desperate strategy to help their families cope with the intolerable conditions all Iraqis face.          

(Third World Network Features. The above article first appeared in Toward Freedom
(March/April 1998, ‘Back to the Margins’).
(Barbara Nimri Aziz, a New York–based journalist and anthropologist, 
has followed developments in Iraq since before the Gulf War ).  

Why don’t Muslims and Christians unite?

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The coming together of the country’s largest religious minorities – both targets of Hindutva – is in their own and the nation’s interest, says a Christian priest

Islam and Christianity have much in common. Their respective followers need not, hence, be alienated from each other. But the truth is quite the opposite. Even those Muslims who attend the celebration of festivals like Diwali, says Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, president of the Islamic Centre in New Delhi, keep a distance from Christian festivals like Christmas. “What makes this all the more strange,” he says, “is that these very Muslims, when they need medical help, prefer to go, if possible, to a Christian hospital.”

There is an element of irony in this situation. People from both communities wish to be closer to each other. But they are also suspicious of each other. So they get stuck, and entertain distorted images of each other. Christians think of Muslims as a ‘closed’ community that cannot be reasoned with, while Muslims feel that Christians are self–absorbed and indifferent to their pain and plight. “I am amazed,” Prof. Tahir Mehmood, chairman of the National Commission for Minorities told this writer, “at the apathy of the leaders to the need for greater unity between the two.”

Inquiries reveal the following areas of consensus:

Muslim–Christian unity is the need of the hour: It is obvious that Muslims and Christians stand only to gain by co–operating with each other. Their current alienation aggravates their vulnerability. If any outfit, for example, wants to modify its anti–Muslim image, it targets Christian workers and their places of worship. If and when it becomes expedient to prove the contrary, Muslims will once again be targeted. It is high time we rejected the stupid notion that the enemy of our enemy is our friend!

It is attainable: From the scriptural and practical angles, there are more compelling reasons for these two religious communities to come together than to remain separate. For one thing, unity is of the essence for these two faiths. That is what supposedly distinguishes them from other religions — Hinduism, for example. As a matter of fact, this has been the main point of resentment against them. Now, it is absurd that Islam and Christianity swear by unity, but remain forever disunited!

But there are stumbling blocks that need to be reckoned with: These are historical, theological, sociological , and political.

lHistorical skeletons: The foremost stumbling block, according to Wahiduddin Khan, is the ‘baggage of historical memories’. There is, for example, the painful memory of the Crusades. There is also the feeling among Muslims that Christians were in favour of the British displacing the Mughal Empire.

l Theological bugs: Muslims are hurt that Christians do not accept the authenticity of their faith. While Muslims acknowledge Christ as a true Prophet, Christians regard Mohammed (Peace be upon him), as a false Prophet. Muslims also feel that Christians show double standards on the question of conversion. When a Muslim converts to Christianity it is hailed as a victory, whereas when the opposite happens it is seen as a defeat. It is also widely feared that if Muslims are allowed to intermingle freely with Christians, they could be drawn to that religion.

Christians, in turn, feel hurt that their brethren discount the divinity of Jesus. They resent the double standard in Muslims, claiming religious freedom for themselves, but denying the same to all others, especially to Christians, in countries where they are in power.

l Sociological and economic walls: According to Dr. Iqbal Ahmed, department of Urdu and Persian, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, the reason for the distance between these two communities is the backwardness of Muslims. Most of them are so poor that they have to work from morning till night just to keep body and soul together. They are left with no time to interact with anybody else. Christians, in comparison, are better off. This social wall keeps them at a distance from each other.

l Political pitfalls: Muslims think of Christians as an indifferent community, whereas Muslims want a place in the political map of India. A Christian leader, preferring anonymity, pointed out that Christians are scared to be identified with Muslims as this could be politically costly to the former. Christians are not targeted by Hindus to the extent that the Muslims have been. They will make themselves far more vulnerable if they are seen to be sympathising with the Muslim cause, he felt.

“In politically sensitive issues,” says Dr. Anil, principal, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, “Christians tend towards cautious neutrality. And that is the case not only in the political, but also in the inter– denomi-national context.”

Our disunity is imported and we don’t have to be bound by it: Neither of these communities from India was responsible, even remotely, for the Crusades. Indian Christian loyalty to the British Raj is largely fictitious. In real terms, Christianity is no threat to Islam in India, as far as conversions are concerned. Above everything else, the alienation between these two communities, says Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, is not only unfortunate but also unwarranted.

The Quran makes no mention of any enmity between the two communities. The Holy Book does urge upon Muslims to emulate positive Christian values like mercy and compassion. The Scriptures, which contain true religious guidance, rather than the shifting biases of history, should guide our choice and conduct.

No worthwhile efforts have been made in this direction: Perhaps there is a time for everything. The need to liberate India from the yoke of British domination made Gandhiji prioritise Hindu–Muslim unity. In the present–day context, Muslim-Christian unity could be as important as Hindu–Muslim unity then was. An earnest effort needs to be launched in this direction. What is the obstacle — the fact that the leadership of both communities has a communal outlook? Quite a few ordinary people from both communities suspect that it is the outlook of their leaders that keeps them apart. It amounts to an admission in real terms that commu-nalism charac-terises these faiths that claim to be universal.

To understand this anomaly, it is helpful to remember that the word ‘communal’ does not have in the univer- sal context the negative meaning it has in the Indian context. No univer-sal faith that is true to its essence can afford to be communal. Commu-nalism is an abdication of the universality of its vision and vocation. It denotes an incapacity to relate positively to the forces beyond one’s own faith. That disability is more natural to a territorial or tribal, rather than to a universal, religion. Therefore, Islam and Christianity should either give up their claims to universality or rid themselves of every trace of the communal outlook that keeps them apart.

It is relevant to note here that Islam and Christianity are ‘Semitic’ only in a limited sense. They are essentially universal. But this is a fact that both communities tend to forget. Universal faiths cannot entertain ethnic or other divisive mindsets. In the days ahead, it becomes all the more necessary to delve deep into the resources of their universalistic faiths in view of the emerging global order. The crucial fact is that only a universal spiritual vision will be adequate to equip us to negotiate the emerging global order.‘For’, not ‘against’!

Unity is neither good nor bad in itself. What really matters is on what we unite. Also, why we want to unite. Hate, it is assumed, is a powerful unifying force. Unity forged out of hate can only be a cause of destruction and greater disunity. It would be tragic if Muslim–Christian unity were to be envisaged along these lines. It will also be ironical because these communities have been used in recent years as hate- objects by fundamentalist forces to help forge unity in Hindu ranks. We are not strangers to the destructiveness inherent in such an enterprise, even when its popular appeal was mercifully very limited. The fact that this project has not ingratiated itself to the larger Hindu community is in itself a tribute to the spirit and culture of India and Hinduism.

So, we need to bear in mind the crucial distinction between “uniting” and “uniting against”. It is not gainst Hindus, or against anyone that the two communities need to unite. It takes very little hindsight to recognise that uniting against any force has been counter–productive. It is to build a united and dynamic India and to reinforce the principles of justice, righteousness and the essential oneness of all humanity that we need to unite. Such unity will not be restricted only to these two communities. Their unity could be a catalyst for greater national unity. The ultimate aim should be to substitute the culture of hate and alienation with a spiritual culture of love and constructive patriotism.

In this context Muslim–Christian unity assumes special significance. “These two great faiths,” reflects Prof. Mohammed Amin, formerly vice–chancellor, Hamdard University, “trace their origins to Abraham.” He goes on to add, “And the root of their discord rests here. So also the rationale for their possible unity.” According to the Bible and the Koran, Isaac and Ishmael, from whom the two communities have descended, were the sons of Abraham. Its a matter of some irony that the two could not get along well only because they were brothers! Moreover, Islam and Christianity are the two major world religions. Their interface has shaped much of modern civilisation and continues to be important for stability and peace in the world. The West prefers to project the Islam-Christianity interface in terms of an irreconcilable civilisational conflict. That is a malicious bias that we are not obliged to entertain or encourage.

What shall we do? As of today, even those who are cynical about bringing the two communities together agree that their unity has assumed unprece-dented and urgent importance. In order to make any progress at all in this endeavour, the following factors, among others, need to be grappled with.

The need to shift from the love of power to the power of love. The root of all divisions is the lust for power and the vested interests that grow out of it. The problem is not so much that religion and politics are inter-mixed. It is natural that they are for both impact on human existence and well being. The real problem is that religion and politics are wielded as instruments of power. The power game not only accumulates and concentrates, but also scatters and alienates. It intensifies enmity. The condition for promoting communal harmony is a paradigm shift — from spreading enmity to love of the neighbour. We need to substitute the divisive role of power with the cementing power of love.

The shift from religion to spirituality. It is basic to the nature of all religi-ous commu-nities that exclusive loyalties are inhe-rent in the faithful. While loyal-ty is a necc-essary aspect of community formation and integral to a sense of belonging, absolute loyalty turns a religious community into a protected area where non–members become trespassers. At that point, the gulf between religion and spirituality begins to widen. The mark of true spirituality is that it enables people to reach out to others (especially those who are different from themselves) in love. The love that must limit itself to those who are like us is weakening from a spiritual point of view whereas it is deemed quite the norm in the religious context. Then differences take precedence over deeper, inner similarities and shared values.

During times of decay, a religion will be dominated by divisive instincts. But that does not mean that religion is divisive. What it indicates is that the religion in question has lost its spiritual wholeness. It becomes necessary then to make an effort to enunciate its true spirituality so as to heal the wounds resulting from the ‘communal’ goals pursued by it.

Unity, religion and the Indian context:

Religious plurality is the essence of the beauty and richness of the Indian context. We are oriented in space rather than time. The time–oriented culture is more centred on unity, even uniformity; whereas a space –oriented culture is centred on plurality and diversity. But diversity, as Nehru emphasised, needs to be under–girded by unity. The ideal goal is ‘unity in diversity’. Nehru did not, alas, realise that this could only be a spiritual goal.

At any rate, we need to reckon that unity has not been a consistent feature of Indian history and culture. Rather, to the contrary. It is here that Islam and Christianity, imbued as they are with the spirit of unity, need to make a radical, patriotic contribution. That mission needs to be undertaken not from a spirit of superiority, but out of the eagerness to serve our country that we so fervently love.

The time has come for Christians and Muslims to realise in shame that they have failed miserably in this inspite of their presence and witness in the Indian context. The tenets of both religions urge us to be promoters of unity. The communal outlook is incompatible with this vocation. But fractured communities as they are at present, the Christian and Muslim communities themselves are lamentably divided. They are fragmented both vertically and horizontally—there is discontinuity between the agenda of the elite and the aspirations of the common man in both communities. Horizontally, the Christian community, more than the Muslims, is splintered along sectarian lines. Some of the Christian denominations are happier to be with people of other faiths than with the people of other denominations within their own faith.

As against this ground reality, a fictitious image of the two communities as highly united and mobilised has been cooked up and dished out to the credulous. This was done, as everyone knows, only to generate the pressure required to forge a sense of unity in the diffused Hindu ranks. But, in the interest of truth it needs to be confessed in shame that the assumption of inner unity within these faiths is a propaganda lie. If only it were true!

It is not in the interests of the members of these communities to be alienated from each other. On account of the distance between them, all sorts of irrational suspicions and distorted images spring up. Most importantly, this violates the very spirit of these two religions. A Christian, for example, is commanded to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ The Scripture does not qualify this Commandment to the effect that it should be obeyed only if your neighbour happens to be a Christian! The idea of the ‘neighbour’ does not admit any distinction at all.

The excitement in the Indian context is that your neighbour could be a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Marxist, agnostic, friend, enemy, and so on. It involves a triumph over these categorisations. It is also signifies the ability to see the hurting humanity beneath these divisive labels. Such robustness is a necessary condition for communal harmony. Those of us who are interested in the future of our country and the future of our humanity need to insist that loving one’s neighbours is a more authentic expression of true religiosity than hating any of them in the name of God, mandir, mosque or church.

Unity cannot be born out of a vacuum.In order to unite we need:

l An agenda: a goal or purpose that we can pursue together. That could, for example, be the building up of a modern nation, vibrant and dynamic so as to meet the aspirations of her people and face the challenges of the New World Order. It could be the creation of an egalitarian society in which justice and righteousness is upheld at all costs. Or, it could be the development of these two communities so that their numerical weakness is neutralised, and so on.

lA commitment to truth: It is not an accident that all divisive projects and vested interests bank heavily on the propagation of lies. In spite of what we witness today, it is integral to the Indian cultural tradition and outlook that ‘truth alone wins; not falsehood’. Truth is also the foundation for unity. Every attempt to spread falsehood about one’s faith or community should be resisted with utmost vigour.

l A sincere effort to develop and empower people in general, and one’s own community in particular: It is in this respect that the current religious and political elite is wanting. It is as though the development of the common people is inimical to their vested interests. As long as this malady is not healed, there can be no hope for transcending communal barriers.What shall we do?

Apart from recognising the ideological and psychological barriers, there is also a need, as Maulana Wahiduddin Kahn emphasises, to approach the situation through various practical steps. His suggestions in this respect are outlined below:

lConstitute a joint team to examine the stumbling blocks for unity and dialogue between the two communities. l Set up a joint research centre to study issues pertaining to Muslim-Christian unity and to establish the rationale for promoting unity. l Evolve a common socio-politico-economic programme.

l Share the facilities available to develop each other — educational institutions, for example. It will send a powerful signal of goodwill if the educa-tional institutions that Christians have are made accessible to Muslims.

l Share each other’s festivals.

l Efforts should be made to increase the opportunities of inter-action between these two communities and to improve their know-ledge of each other.

In conclusion it needs to be affirmed that the time to address issues pertaining to Muslim–Christian unity has indeed come. But this task has to be approached not from a communal, but from a spiritual and patriotic outlook. It is not against anyone, but for the sake of, especially for the sake of, the nation, that the unity agenda needs to be vigorously pursued.

Such a pursuit should be founded on the truth that all religions are unique. It should also be enlivened by the hope that differences do not have to drive us apart. They can be transcended by the spiritual deepening and renewal of these two communities. When that happens, they would exemplify a culture of unity that could heal the many divisions with which our land continues to be wounded at the present time.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July  1998. Year 5  No, 45, Cover Story 1

Bred on hatred, ready for the Bomb

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Be it India or pakistan, the state, the mainline media, teachers and text- books, and the family connive to poison young minds

 

However different the focus and approach of over 28 different peoples’–level peace efforts between Pakistan and India in the past half century, it is not insignificant that scores of individuals and organisations involved in these efforts have, while owing allegiance to varied initiatives thrown up similar conclusions.

A common resolution at the end of every India–Pak peace conference is to work towards a winding down of the hate/hysteria consciously spawned about “the other” by the respective states of India and Pakistan, by large sections of the mainline media of both countries, and, most spuriously, by our respective text books and oral education in schools. The rather less visible but more permanent impact of prejudice and stereotype unleashed within the family is a factor that also needs to be taken into consideration.

The fact that the Pakistan-India rhetoric often gets blurred and confused into the dialectics of the Muslim–Hindu discourse with its own set of imposed prejudices is, in a sense, unavoidable given the peculiar circumstances behind the creation of both countries, a division of two nation states on communal lines. So, if Pakistan was sought and attained as a “land of the pure” for Muslims, post–1947, community lore in majority India, spawned consciously and systematically by Hindu right wing organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Mahasabha, has created an army of young minds, prepared to hold and defend the motherland’s honour (from future divisions) for whom the country carved out was “Paapistan” (land of the sinner) and remains as such, sinister in design, even today.

Pakistan’s text books manipulated history and even systematically demonised any evidences of composite cultures or united struggles or shared allegiances of region or language outside religion. But ours have not been unblemished either. If the shared history of several thousand years was sought to be overlooked by the systematic attempt to Islamise history in Pakistan, a process during which even the word ‘Hindu’ was demonised, our own systematic efforts, at one level more subtle, at another as crude, have not been unblemished.

Columns on these pages in the past have dealt with the demonisation of today’s Indian Muslims and the marginalisation of other minorities through, among other things, the systematic manipulation and distortion of historical events (“invasions and attacks by Mohammedans” among other things) and images to suit the Hindu communal design. For today’s argument, however, I shall restrict myself to the Pakistan-India discourse and attempt to show how even “superior and magnanimous India’s text-books” have not just been singularly wanting but served the overall purpose of both nation states post–1947 — that is, keeping hate sentiments on the boil. A book of national songs (“Hamare rashtra geet”) used in schools and recommended in the curriculum in New Delhi and some parts of Uttar Pradesh has two songs that bear mention. One, called Pakistan ki jhanki (A glimpse of Pakistan) and the other titled Pakistan ki history (The history of Pakistan.) seek to whip up sustained contempt and aversion to a neighbour, “a country of the devil carved out of the motherland.

Hamara Itihas aur Nagrik Jeevan, (Our history and civic life), the part 3 text book for schools in UP has a chapter, number 13, on “Our Neighbouring Countries.” After lamenting at the outset of this section that poverty, famine, drought and disease are the outcomes of war, the first para concludes: “at the time of the 1962 Indo–China and 1965 and 1971 Indo–Pak wars, it is evident that it was because of the selfishness of the leaders of our neighbouring countries and their expansionist policies that they declared war on our great, peace–loving nation and disrupted our progress.”

In the sub–section in the same chapter that deals with Pakistan particularly, the text book reads: “Pakistan is our closest neighbour. Before Independence, a part of India…To date, the history of Pakistan is one of sectarian strife, political assassination, individual aggrandisement and conflict….. Fundamentalism, fanatical sloganeering and mass hysteria have marked Pakistan’s governance. Its leaders have used such sloganeering to divert the attention of their toiling masses from real issues…India has always believed, and followed a policy that it is only through friendship and co–operation that India and Pakistan can progress. Even today we carry the hope our relations with Pakistan improve and both developing nations grow with speed towards prosperity.”

Do these words display scant honesty to facts and a fair share of superiority? Has the Indian leadership always been magnanimous in extending a hand of friendship to the land and people across the border? Was the 1971 war launched by Pakistan? Did former prime minister Indira Gandhi and now Atal Behari Vajpayee never use the forever convenient “external threat” to let loose a fear psychosis, win an election, declare Emergency, test the bomb?

Our hope however is the minds of the young. The great thing about young minds is their hyper–activeness, their abiding curiosity, their desire to shock and scandalise and — what may defy any such demonising efforts eventually — their ability to pursue a strand of thought that challenges them to take a fresh or new direction. The rider however is that one makes sustained and consistent efforts to open channels of communication with them.

That has been my experience with Aman, the South Asia studies and Peacepals programme. Launched on a hunch with the abiding support of Mrs. Gomti Venkateshwar, former principal of the Bombay International School, Mumbai and Mr. Sami Mustafa, principal of the Centre for Advanced Studies, Karachi, we have together ensured that over 75 children between Karachi and Mumbai are in regular touch with each other. Writing letters, asking questions, having arguments and disagreements even… but communicating.

How did we begin? It was close to August 1996, the onset of the 50th year of Independence for both countries. Through my research for Khoj, the secular education module that is being compiled, and my obsession for different facets of the struggle for Independence against the British, gross lacunae in our printed text–books had begun to stare me in the face.

Believe it or not, despite half a million lives lost and over eight hundred thousand persons displaced during partition, followed by a half century of reflection on the tragedy, our text books and our teachers had nothing more than trite phrases laced with the ever-prevalent prejudice to offer to future generations on Partition.

A period that had caused unimaginable trauma and displacement, scarred lives, distorted visions, even reassured some with hope in humanity. But we refused to impart fair and even–handed knowledge to our children. Formation of the Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Lahore Declaration, Direct Action Day — these are the four sub–heads with three paras each that we deal with the entire period. The result? Confusions, question marks, ripe condition for manipulation and prejudice coming from other sources to breed.

We were going into the 50th year of independence of both countries. What better start to the next 50 years than opening up a channel of communication between some children of India and Pakistan. Freeing them of “our”, “the adult” burden that we have been forcing them to carry all these years, and allowing them, as all genuine learning should, to make their own choices, ask their own questions, make up their own minds.

I asked one batch of the children at BIS in Mumbai if they would like to write to children in Pakistan, become penpals with them. On two conditions, was the startling, but actually predictable, reply: Provided you first do a module on Partition — why, how, what happened? And Kashmir — why and what is happening with us? Done. We had a detailed discussion on the two subjects requested and animated, excited and endless discussions that followed. Only after that did the Peacepals exchange begin. It is, fortunately, still continuing.

What is as heartening is that through CC’s Learning pages and Khoj pull-out (it will resume next month), the message of Aman has spread to a wide network of readers. And youngsters — who have joined in the Aman exchange, desirous of a friend across the border, perturbed by the latest round of hate–mongering which has reached unprecedented proportions with the testing of nuclear bombs by first India and then Pakistan — write to us every month.

Apart from Syed Hasan Zia Rizvi of Class VII’s touching poem that we reproduce next month on the Khoj pull–out pages in full, Aahana Nivedhita’s prompt and short letter is telling (see quote). After outlining her address, her hobbies etc, she pours her heart out.

We share your concern and sense of disquiet, Syed Hasan and Aahana. And if the little that we are attempting helps stem your distress and emboldens you to share your feelings that appear to swim against the tide, our efforts would have been meaningful. That’s when we may together realise that it is we who speak for the majority, not they.

Archived from Communalism Combat, June  1998, Year 5  No. 44, Learning

Will Jammu go to the Kashmir way?

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Some among the Kashmiri pandit who had to migrate from the valley earlier are wondering whether they will be forced to move again

 

Will history repeat itself and will there be another migration? Some residents of Jammu are seriously pondering these questions.The fear is not entirely baseless. And the reasons are more than one. Recently, the circulation of some anonymous letters to a few Kashmiri Pandit families —living in Trikuta Nagar, a posh locality in Jammu city and Dwega Nagar (Bantalab), situated on the outskirts of city — asking them to vacate their houses, has sent shivers down the spines of Pandits re–located here.The recent threats are reminiscent of similar ones received by Kashmiri Pandits in 1989–1990 when each family had received threatening calls, letters and even notices in the local papers asking them to leave the Valley. (The Hizbul Mujahideen’s open threats asking KPs to leave within 48 hours were published in a local Urdu paper, Al Safa). Fearful of their safety then, they had left. Similarly, the once sleepy town of Reasi in Jammu is agog with activity these days as a number of people from villages like Dharmari, Armas etc. in the upper reaches of Udhampur district are migrating to Reasi to escape the wrath of the militants.

The entire hilly belt, spread over 1,000 square kilometres, was rocked by the massacre of 28 persons on the night of April 17 when militants struck in village Prankote. This incident was the first of its kind in the trouble–torn state. When militants had earlier attacked Sangrampura, Wandhama (January 25, 1998 when 20 KP residents were killed) and Gool Gulabgarh earlier this year, the killings had not been so bestial as in Prankote that fateful night. Not a single bullet was fired but the hapless villagers were killed with sharp-edged weapons and even burnt alive. Since this incident, there has been some migration of the Hindus living in that region. Anywhere from 300-1,000 families have already migrated from this belt in the upper reaches of Jammu after the April 17 massacre.

Many of the influential, better-placed Kashmir Pandits, victims of the forced migration from the Valley earlier, see this as one more step in the well–planned strategy of the ISI and other Islamic forces to wipe out the community ethnically from the valley. J.N. Koul, President of All India Kashmiri Samaj (AIKS) who is also the president of SOS Villages of India, feels that what is happening even in the Jammu region now is also part of the Pan–Islamic movement.
“They are planning to wipe out areas of Hindu–domination and thus make a comfortable place for themselves to live”, he says. The KP leaders who gathered at Chandigarh on May 2 to participate in a two–day zonal conference were aware of the fact that anonymous letters had been received by a few KP houses in Jammu. “We know about it but we do not want to publicise it because then it will create a feeling of insecurity among the Hindu community,” said H.N. Jattu, a KP leader. He added that after their organisation has ascertained all the facts, they will be taking the matter up with the Administration. On the question of the return of the KPs to the Valley, however, Jattu remains sceptical. He feels that whenever any concrete step is taken towards the return of the Pandits, some militant–inspired incident occurs.

Does this mean that the people in the Valley do not want them back or that those now in control of the movement are blatantly communalising the issue? The KP leadership is of the belief that the situation has become sharply communalised, a fact manifest in the recent selective massacres. The government, in their opinion, has been shockingly silent, allowing Hindus to become victims to the nefarious designs of Islamic forces.

The Jammu and Kashmir Human Right Commission, which has recently submitted its report to the state government on the Wandhama massacre, had observed that serious security lapses were responsible for the carnage. The JKHRC has also recommended security cover for the Kashmiri Pandits, who live in the Valley. KP migrants settled in Jammu are also being resented by the local Dogras of Jammu who clearly see them as competing for resources and power.

“Even the people of Jammu do not want Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu though we are contributing to Jammu’s economy,” says Jattu. “How do we know that it is not local Jammuites who are responsible for these anonymous threats to KPs asking them to leave their houses? Only after we ascertain the truth of who is behind them will we explore the steps to be taken.”

Panun Kashmir (PK), a Kashmir Pandit organisation that has been consistently demanding a separate homeland for Kashmiri Pandits, long before any militancy was evident in the state, categorically rules out any question of a return of KPs to the Valley. Apart from a separate homeland for KPs in Kashmir, there demands includes statehood for Jammu and Union Territory status for Ladhakh. This organisation has allied itself with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the BJP at the Centre, contributing to the further communalisation of the dialogue.

PK leaders, Dr. Agnishekhar and Dr K.L.Chowdhary say that the question of the Pandits’ return must form part of a board–based discussion with Indian political leaders from every spectrum and thereafter with National Conference leaders. “We need to know whether the Indian nation wants us or not? Does the nation think that our survival is paramount for national interests?” asks Dr Ajay Chrangoo, vice-chairman and head of the political affairs wing of Panun Kashmir. He has represented the community and PK at many human rights conferences abroad.

But the more marginalised Pandits and other Hindus living in camps at Nagrota and Muthi in treacherous conditions, however, are quite critical of their own leadership. These ordinary Pandits who are not part of any organisation and do not identify with the more elitist PK feel strongly that leaders belonging to the All Party Hurriyat Conference and the Kashmiri Pandit community residing in the camps should be invited to discuss the issue together if the issue of their return is to be seriously pursued at all.

For them, the clearcut stand taken by various sections of the leadership in the Valley in unequivocally condemning the massacres offers a ray of hope as do the visits of both Mohammed Yasin Mallick and Shabir Ahmed Shah to the sites of the carnage (even attending the funerals) in Jammu.
The Valley even observed an entirely successful hartal to protest the selective killings and prominent Kashmiri nationalist leaders clearly condemned the actions of the militants.

But for PK and Dr.Chrangoo the fact that it took the Indian government about six months to recognise that an exodus of Pandits had taken place in 1990 is still a sore point. For him and the PK, their migration is still perceived as part of an engineered campaign to displace the Pandits out of the valley. Similar designs may be afoot in Jammu,” he feels.

While speaking to this correspondent, Shailendra Aima, member, working committee of PK and editor of Kashmir Sentinal, a fortnightly published by PK Foundation, revealed that representatives of his organisation were invited for discussions with central and state leaders soon after the Wandhama carnage. The PK demand for a separate homeland for KPs, within Kashmir, was discussed at length and an outcome can be expected soon, he said. He refused to go into the details of the meeting for “it may jeopardise the whole exercise”. Aima did say that he hoped it may bring out some results.

The writer is a Jammu–based journalist.

Invitable logic

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The communalisation of the militant movement was a forgone conclusion

GUEST COLUMN

For which state in the country is India—Constitutionally speaking — not a “secular” republic? The answer, which is bound to surprise, is Jammu and Kashmir. This particular aspect of the Indian state, as described in the Preamble to the Indian Constitution, doesn’t apply to Jammu and Kashmir, To put it simply, India is not a secular state as far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned.This for a state which inspite of being Muslim–dominated joined the Indian Union assured of its ostensibly secular principles. This, for a state, which during the communal holocaust accompanying Partition remained entirely peaceful making Mahatma Gandhi see a ray of hope in the sub–continent. This for a state which did not see any semblance of communal tension when the Babri Masjid was demolished. Yet today, civil society in Kashmir stands thoroughly polarised and fragmented.

Even though the more gruesome aspects of communalisation have become visible only recently, the communalisation of the militant movement was a foregone conclusion. If anything, what is surprising is that the change in the character of the ethno-nationalist militant movement that started in 1989, took so long to happen. Everybody involved with the politics of Jammu and Kashmir — be it the government of India, the state government, militant organisations, indeed, even the people of Kashmir—has contributed to the communalisation of the movement in the valley. Before we look at the different factors that helped foster this development it might be worthwhile to look at how the entire movement came to become structurally bound towards being communal.

In analysing the growing influence of communal forces within the state, it is important to recognise that the state of Jammu and Kashmir comprises of three distinct regions: the Muslim–dominated valley, the Hindu–dominated Jammu province, and the Buddhist–dominated Ladakh. This cross-classification of geography and religion made the state highly vulnerable to communal tensions.

The only feature that had kept communalism at bay in a state apparently so obviously prone to it was the high level of ethno–nationalist sentiment that prevailed atleast in the Valley. The feeling of ethnicity and imagined nationalism blurred the religious distinctions to a significant extent. During the peak of militancy from 1989 right until 1993 even, there were no community–based killings in Kashmir for the militant movement was almost entirely directed against the Indian State.

But in the need to combat militancy which was threatening the stability of the Indian nation state, different arms of the State machinery, ensured that the distinction between the State and civil society was obliterated and the struggle for self–determination was presented and perceived as a revolt against the Indian (implicitly assumed to be, Hindu) society. The lines were thus drawn by the actions of the state and the first impact was that Kashmiri Pandits, a minority in the Valley, felt insecure and threatened.

 

That they should have felt so was but natural. But what was of utmost significance was that this sense of insecurity was legitimised by the state government, which at that point of time was controlled by the governor, Jagmohan Malhotra (now a BJP MP). By legitimising the fear of the minority and providing them with logistical support to move en masse out of the Valley, the ethnic movement was communalised almost instantly. The other operational factor that heightened the communalisation of the militant movement was the complete decimation of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, again by the Indian State. Even though the JKLF was fighting for secession, it was avowedly secular in its outlook. The decline in the mass and muscle power of JKLF resulted in the control of the secessionist movement going over from a secular leadership into the hands of Islamist organisations, most notably the Hizbul Mujahideen. Once the (JKLF) loss control of the movement in the Valley, its communalisation was imminent. The fall of JKLF and the consequent rise of the Hizbul Mujahideen was partly related to the fact that the Indian security forces managed to completely eliminate the top rank leaders of the JKLF by 1993 while a similar assault could not be carried out against the Hizbul Mujahideen.Apart from the deliberate acts of the Indian State, the JKLF’s loss of base also had to do with its own ideological failure, thereafter. Bereft of arms, the JKLF was not radically different from any mainstream regional political party, especially the National Conference. Looked at closely, the pristine agenda of the National Conference for autonomy is very close to the concept of azaadi that the JKLF had been propagating. In that sense, it did not envisage a very innovative change in the system.

On the contrary, the Hizbul Mujahideen offered the people of Kashmir a new system based on the principles of Islam — Nizam–e–Mustafa. Without getting into the desirability of such a system, what it offered the people was a change from the existing system that hadn’t delivered. The groundwork for this had already been done through schools set up by the Jamaat–i–Islami in areas where state schools did not exist.

This is turn changed the contours of militant activity which had been confined to the urban part of the Valley. Militant activity shifted to the plains of Doda and Kishtawar (and from thereon to Udhampur) which had a strong presence of other communities, unlike in the Valley where Kashmiri Pandits were in a minuscule minority. And by 1993, they had almost completely left the Valley.

With militancy losing much of its gun power and the writ of the state being re–established, its continuation hold was sought to be ensured through the targeting of the vulnerable minorities in areas outside the Valley like Prankote in Udhampur.

As pointed out earlier, with the activity shifting to the plains, there was a sense of normalcy returning to the Valley. A trickle of Kashmiri Pandits started coming back to the Valley especially those from the rural areas. With the character of the rural area having changed in the last seven years — Sufist Islam (known as Rishism in the Valley) having given way to more regimented and ritualistic and perhaps even more aggressive forms of Islam— the communal element started getting primacy over the ethnic element that had earlier dominated.
This change in the basic feature of Kashmir will take not only time but also an enormous amount of genuine effort backed by political legitimacy to reverse it. This doesn’t seem likely in the short run as the continuation of militancy even in the form of a virulent communalism suits the interests of those who are ruling the state — be it the army or the civil authorities.

(The writer is resident editor, Business Standard, Mumbai).
 

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