of the pro-war propaganda machine
 

IN THE former USSR, people knew that the country’s state-owned newspaper Pravda would peddle Moscow’s line, no matter how outrageous the lies. George W. Bush can’t boast that the Republican Party owns the country’s newspapers, television stations or radio networks. But he can still count on a press that’s nearly as obedient as Pravda.

No matter how many lies George Bush tells about Iraq’s "threat" to the US, the corporate media won’t ask him the hard questions. Bush and his administration know that they can count on the "patriotism" of the press — which will report on the coming war like a local sports reporter rooting for the home team. And Bush — unlike the rulers of the former USSR — won’t even have to issue any orders or appoint any news censors. That’s because the press in the US censors itself.

In May 2002, CBS news anchor Dan Rather acknowledged, "What we are talking about here —whether one wants to recognise it or not, or call it by its proper name or not — is a form of self-censorship. It starts with a feeling of patriotism within oneself. It carries through with a certain knowledge that the country as a whole… felt and continues to feel this surge of patriotism within themselves. And one finds oneself saying: ‘I know the right question, but you know what? This is not exactly the right time to ask it.’"

Of course, Rather said this to Britain’s BBC — and didn’t have the courage to say it at home, where he had been leading the patriotic charge in the media after the attacks of September 11. Predictably, almost no outlet of the US mainstream media reported on Rather’s comments.

No one in Washington had to tell newspapers to bury them – just like no one had to tell the press to ignore reports, published in Britain’s Observer newspaper, that the Bush administration spied on United Nations (UN) Security Council members during the debate on a new resolution to authorise war on Iraq.

And few media outlets have focused on Newsweek magazine’s revelation that Iraqi Gen. Hussein Kamel, a prominent defector, testified in 1995 that Iraq had already been significantly disarmed. Bush and other administration officials have regularly cited Kamel’s testimony as evidence that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction.

The fact is that the media will support this war, despite the restrictions that the government will place on their ability to report freely — and despite the administration’s open manipulation of information.

The image presented of the new Gulf War will be totally sanitised. During the US bombardment of Afghanistan, Walter Isaacson, the chief executive of CNN, told his staff that it was "perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan." And during the 1991 Gulf War, the media quickly buried images of the horrific slaughter carried out against retreating soldiers and civilians on the "Highway of Death" at the end of the war.

The media lines up with the government on fundamental matters not because of any conspiracy or backroom deals, but because the media themselves are huge corporations that share the same economic and political interests with the tiny elite that runs the US government. In some cases, they’re the same people.

It’s now common practice for the Big Three networks to put former military officials, politicians and government bureaucrats on the payroll. "The media has simply become a branch of the war effort," the Palestinian author Edward Said wrote recently. "What has entirely disappeared from television is anything remotely resembling a consistently dissenting voice." As if to underline the point, in February, the cable news network MSNBC cancelled Phil Donahue’s show – and announced that it was hiring Republican hack Dick Armey as a commentator.

Current and former government voices dominate the "debate" in the media about war and other questions of foreign policy. "Unnamed government sources," press spokespeople, Pentagon officers, White House officials, and ideologues close to the administration make up most of the "experts" and "reliable sources" that we hear from.

The corporations that dominate the media are getting more and more concentrated. Ben Bagdikian, author of Media Monopoly, estimates that six inter-linked corporations dominate the US media today. NBC is owned by major military contractor General Electric. But even news media that aren’t directly tied to the military-industrial complex have a stake in the system.

That’s because the media are in the business of making profits from selling advertising. Print, television and radio media all make their money by selling audiences to advertisers – and they know that their bottom line will suffer if they pursue stories that might damage advertisers.

The economics of reporting also shapes the news that we see. For example, rather than spend large sums to send an investigative reporter to uncover human rights abuses against detainees being tortured at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, for next to nothing, the media can cover the latest White House press conference denying the crimes.

That means independent media are a crucial source of information that the mainstream media won’t report – or will bury in a sea of pro-war coverage. We need to support independent media efforts where we can and build our own newspapers, like Socialist Worker, that will tell the truth about this war. But we also need to directly challenge the corporate media outlets – to force their hand and shame them into covering the stories that we know they would rather not touch.

After months of downplaying the size of demonstrations against the war on Iraq, major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post were forced to give front-page coverage to the massive February 15 international demonstrations against the war. The main reason was that the participation of more than 10 million people around the world meant the demonstrations were simply too big for editors to bury. But activists also directly targeted National Public Radio, the Times and other elite media — and shamed them into acknowledging that they had ignored the story of earlier protests.

February 15 showed the power of protest to reach millions of people who share our anger about this war – and who will be more likely to join us on the streets at the next demonstration. We can also look to the example of the Vietnam War to see this power. The media backed the brutal war against the people of Vietnam from the moment that the US began to send in its "advisers." But the anti-war movement forced the reality of the war into public consciousness – and pressured the US establishment, including the media, to open up the issue to debate.

Reporters were able to file stories that exposed the brutality of the war and challenged the government’s lies – a process that led millions of people to turn against the Vietnam War, and eventually helped bring it to an end.
 

Wag the media lapdog

Nothing exposed the Washington press corps as lapdogs as much as its gutless behaviour at George Bush’s White House press conference two weeks ago. Bush got away with mentioning September 11 eight times during the press conference — even though, to date, no one has offered any evidence that there’s any connection between Iraq and the hijackings.

But the media have given Bush a free pass to use September 11 as a pretext for a war against Iraq. "As a bogus rallying cry, ‘Remember 9/11’ ranks with ‘Remember the Maine’ of 1898 for war with Spain or the Gulf of Tonkin resolution of 1964," Nation journalist William Greider recently wrote.

Greider points out that, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey, 42 per cent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. And 55 per cent believe that Saddam directly supports Al Qaeda, according to an ABC News poll.

There’s no evidence for either belief. But here’s one question that you won’t hear the media asking: How have we contributed to spreading these myths, which we then report as evidence of people’s support for war?

As veteran journalist Tom Wicker wrote recently, "Bush administration spokesmen have made several cases for waging war against Iraq, and the US press has tended to present all those cases to the public as if they were gospel." We are seeing, Wicker concluded, "an American press that seems sometimes to be playing on the administration team rather than pursuing the necessary search for truth, wherever it may lead."
 

‘Just tell me where I should line up’

Dan Rather is sometimes pointed out as an example of liberal bias in the media. It’s hard to understand why, though, when you look at what Rather has had to say about the "war on terrorism."

"George Bush is the president, he makes the decisions, and, you know, as just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell me where."

"Whatever arguments one may or may not have had with George Bush the younger before September 11, he is our commander in chief, he’s the man now. And we need unity, we need steadiness. I’m not preaching about it. We all know this."

"I would willingly die for my country at a moment’s notice and on the command of my president."

The ‘liberal bias’ hoax

Of the many myths about the US media, the two most common are that we have a "free press" and that we have a "liberal" media. In its ads for the aggressively right-wing Fox News Channel, Roger Ailes, the network’s chairman, sums up these two myths in a single quote: "America guarantees a free press… Freedom relies on a fair press."

The implication of Ailes’ idiotic statement is that Fox is providing a right-wing balance against the liberal bias of the mainstream press. But is there a liberal bias?

Nation columnist Eric Alterman recently did a study of newspaper articles and found that since 1992, the word "media" appeared close to the phrase "liberal bias" 469 times. The words "media" and "conservative bias" were linked only 17 times. As Alterman notes, "If people are disposed to believe that the media have a liberal bias, it’s because that’s what the media have been telling them all along."

Likewise, right-wing "watchdog" groups have orchestrated well-financed campaigns to squelch any deviation in the mainstream media. "We are training our guns on any media outlet or any reporter interfering with America’s war on terrorism or trying to undermine the authority of President Bush," said L Brent Bozell III, founder of the Media Research Center (MRC). Or, as the MRC’s director of media research Rick Noyes put it: "What we were looking for was home-team sports reporting."

The truth is that the media is far from "liberal"—and far from free. The press is free only for those who own the press — that is, individual billionaires and huge corporations. And those gatekeepers of who can and cannot appear on the news or in the editorial pages overwhelmingly share the assumptions of the tiny elite that runs this country.

Far from liberal, they share a narrow worldview that accepts the "right" of the US military and the free market to dominate people’s lives around the world – and this is what we see reflected in the corporate media. What "debate" we see in the media is overwhelmingly between people who agree on the fundamentals – but occasionally disagree on how best to sell their right-wing agenda.
 

Why Donahue got canned at MSNBC

Veteran television talk show host Phil Donahue had his show pulled by MSNBC in February. Why? A leaked internal report says that his show presented "a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war."

"He seems to delight in presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush and sceptical of the administration’s motives," the report said. Of course, you won’t see any leaked reports about how notorious right-wingers, such as Bill O’Reilly and Brit Hume at Fox News, consistently present pro-war, pro-Bush voices.

The leaked NBC document describes Donahue as "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace." In fact, Donahue’s show averaged more than 4,46,000 viewers and was the top-rated show on MSNBC, outperforming Hardball with Chris Matthews.

But NBC is in a race to the bottom with Fox – to see which network can wrap itself in the largest flag. Cutting out Donahue was part of NBC’s strategy for shedding anything that might make it seem like a "liberal" network. 

(Socialist Worker, March 19, 2003)
(http://www.zmag.org)

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 12

The post The ‘free press’ myth appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 

The all-out assault on secularism is not merely against tolerance; it is against democracy itself and the very basis of a pluralist India. As before, a two- nation theory will only lead to Partition, or as Yugoslavia and the USSR have shown, to Balkanisation

Independent India was born in the fires of communalism, through the genocidal carnage of the Partition. In the desperate contest between the secularists led by the Congress under the Mahatma and Nehru, and the communalists abetted by the British and led on the one side by the Muslim League and on the other by the Hindu Mahasabha–RSS, the latter won. The periodic and increasingly menacing communal violence that has occurred since then is symptomatic of the unfinished secular agenda.

Those who fondly imagined that the bloodletting that followed the Babri Masjid demolition, particularly in Bombay and Surat, would be checked by the moderate and statesman–like Vajpayee leading an NDA coalition that included secular parties, were in for a rude shock, especially after the genocide in Gujarat by the RSS–appointed Narendra Modi’s government in February–March 2002. The BJP’s current moves to vacate the Supreme Court stay on religious ceremonies near the Babri Masjid site, and the proposed bill to ban cow slaughter, starkly highlight that secularism is under assault as never before.

A major reason this assault has progressed so far has been because of the assiduously spread myths and falsehoods about what secularism, democracy, the Indian nation and culture are. The core and co-ordinating body behind this Hindutva attack, the RSS, has its own Western roots. The Italian researcher Marzia Casolari has exposed the RSS links, after it was set up in 1925 with the Italian fascist party led by Mussolini. RSS sarsanghchalak MS ‘Guru’ Golwalkar’s admiration for Hitler is well known. Many of the core concepts of Hindutva are Indianised versions of Italian and German fascism. Swadeshi versions some might say.

For example, the sangh brigade has argued that since India is very largely Hindu, it is a Hindu Rashtra or nation. This is similar to Hitler’s concept of the German ‘herrenvolk’ or pure Aryan community. The sanghis argue that the Aryans, contrary to all historical evidence, were indigenous people and the forebears of a Hindu race. All minorities, esp. the Muslims and Christians (but the Sikhs and Jains are not so stridently included as they are considered part of the Hindu family), are considered illegitimate converts by force and fraud by Muslim and British rulers.

The attack on the Babri Masjid (a misnomer as Babar never visited Ayodhya) was part of the sangh purification (sudhikaran) of history, and righting of mythical historical wrongs by the Muslims. Babar and ‘Babar ke aulad’ demolished Ramajanmabhoomi, and so the sangh brigade had to repay the Muslims in the same medieval coin. And today, Vajpayee talks of historical proof that the Rama temple existed there, despite the evidence given by renowned archaeologists like D. Mandal, and eminent historians like RS Sharma, Romila Thapar et al. Despite the fact that in Ayodhya there already exist several Rama temples, for the sangh brigade desperate to remain in the seat of power, Lord Rama also has an accommodation problem.

Many of us forget that India was the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, and that the very influential emperor Asoka was his disciple. The Asoka chakra is at the centre of the Indian national flag. What happened to all the Buddhists in the land of the Buddha? They were forcibly converted to Hinduism by the Brahmins and their followers. Buddhist shrines and monasteries were despoiled and turned into Hindu sites. Thus the Bodh Gaya temple today in Bihar is managed by both Buddhists and Hindus. The sacred Boddhisatva tree nearby, where Buddha attained enlightenment, was chopped down by a Hindu fanatic centuries ago.

No one, including the Buddhists, talk of this now. So forcible conversion and the demolition and co-optation of religious shrines are nothing new, and the Brahmin–led Hindus because they were the most powerful, were the biggest offenders. This was pre–eminently not a matter of religion, but of political power, as indeed Hindutva is.

At the core of this history of hate is the communal project that argues, as the fascists did, that the Hindus are a homogeneous community, with little difference, and no pluralism. Thus the term ‘majority community’. This community is seen as having objective contradictions and differences with the minorities, the ‘other.’ But aren’t Hindus divided by class, caste, gender, region, language, etc.? Aren’t the Tamils and Kannadigas feuding over the Cauvery river waters mostly Hindus? Is SM Krishna who tried to side-track Supreme Court orders on this issue less of a Hindu than Ms. Jayalalitha?

Are those for and against affirmative action including the Mandal Commission recommendations less Hindu than the others? There are also Hindus on both sides of the bitter dispute on the Women’s Reservation Bill. Such examples can be multiplied. Clearly Hindus never were and never can be homogenous. Similarly, Muslims and other minorities are also not homogenous. For example, Muslims who claim to have descended from upper castes or more lofty ancestors like the Sayyids, Ashrafs, Khans do not normally marry the comparatively lower caste Ansaris and Qureshis. In Kerala, the Syrian Orthodox Christians do not normally marry the Latin Christians or frequent the same church. Thus there is no homogenous ‘majority’ community or its counterpart ‘minority’ communities.

The assault on secularism is also based on a crucial misrepresentation of democracy. The sangh argument is that democracy means majority rule, and since Hindus are a majority, Indian democracy must be Hindu, and what for them is the same thing, Hindutva rule. But this is another distortion. Democracy is not simply majority rule. Liberal democratic theory holds that all majorities are temporary. Take elections. Yesterday a party/coalition e.g., the BJP–Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, was in power. Today another party/coalition, e.g. the Congress–NCP is in power. The leadership/membership of both is predominantly Hindu.

If one makes the trivial statistical point that in either case Hindus are in the ‘majority,’ the concomitant confession will have to be that Hindus are different: they vote and act differently. That further proves they are not a homogenous community. Further, in the ‘first past the post’ electoral system, Narendra Modi’s sweeping electoral victory in Gujarat, like Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s famous Lok Sabha victory in 1971, was based on a minority vote, less than 50 per cent. Very few Indian political formations have got more than 50 per cent votes, and they have never consecutively repeated the performance. Moreover, democracies must guarantee minority rights.

That leads us to the next anti-secular canard of minority appeasement. For example, the sanghis argue, that Article 30 of the Fundamental Rights, which allows minorities to run their own educational institutions, has resulted in the proliferation of madrassas that are spreading Muslim fanaticism if not terrorism. This they say is minorityism, against democratic majoritarianism (that we have already refuted). In the first place, there are enough criminal laws in place in the IPC and CrPC to counter this, apart from the extraordinary anti–terrorist laws like NSA, Armed Forces Special Powers Act and POTA. No minority institution is above the law. But the question that arises is what about the ‘majority’ RSS–controlled Saraswati Shishu Mandirs, Vanvasi Kalyan Kendras and the like? Don’t these spread Hindu fanaticism? And don’t these fuel genocidal terrorism as in Gujarat and elsewhere? Behind the rhetorical façade it appears that ‘majority’ fanaticism is seen as patriotism, but ‘minority’ conservatism as ‘jehadi terrorism.’

Similar is the argument that subsidies to the Haj pilgrimage are minority appeasement. If subsidies for the restoration/rebuilding of Hindu shrines and pilgrimages and the Kumbh Mela are acceptable, then why not this? But there is a more profound objection. If secularism is about the separation of religion and politics, why is the state subsidising religion? We must distinguish between the state being partisan between religions, funding religions per se, and subsidising a few religious activities. In such a stratified and largely poor society, where religion not only for the pious, but even for the atheistic, is an integral part of culture, limited state subsidies cannot be simply decried as anti–secular, as favouring either Hindu or Muslim. In any case, quite contrary to the Hindutva argument, Hindus have got more subsidies than the minorities.

Today, the latest furore is over cow slaughter instigated by the Congress CM of MP, Digvijay Singh. Facing an election later in the year, the two term CM sought to beat the BJP at its own game like other Congress leaders before him, and raised the issue of cow slaughter, accusing the BJP of being insincere in this objective. The local youth Congress even printed posters accusing Vajpayee of being a ‘beef eater.’ In the first place, eating habits have nothing to do with nationalism or democracy. Secondly, many lower caste Hindus as well as Hindus in eastern, north–eastern and southern India, apart from the minorities, eat beef. Thirdly, Article 48 of the Directive Principles, which unlike Fundamental Rights are not judicially enforceable, does not focus exclusively on the prohibition of cow slaughter. It concerns the scientific organisation of animal husbandry and enjoins on the state to preserve and improve on all existing indigenous breeds, and prohibits the slaughter not only of cows, but of all "draught and milch cattle." In other words, under this Directive Principle, all draught and milch cattle including cows, buffaloes, yaks, mithuns, should not be slaughtered.

So why this Brahminical insistence only on cows? The comprehensive prohibition in Article 48 is just not enforceable. Hindus, especially lower caste and poor, widely eat buffalo meat, and where they can get it, beef, as in Kerala, West Bengal and the north east. In any case there are other Directive Principles such as Article 41 which includes the right to work, Article 39 for an equitable distribution of wealth, etc. that no one talks of today. Is cow slaughter more important than all this?

It is clear that the current assault on secularism is motivated, aimed at establishing a pseudo–theocratic, authoritarian polity in which the BJP can secure its rule forever. Where progressively the sansad (Parliament) will be substituted by a dharma sansad of self–appointed ‘sants’ acceptable to the sangh brigade and the political opposition be booked under POTA.

The all–out assault on secularism is not merely against tolerance; it is against democracy itself and the very basis of a pluralist India. As before, a two–nation theory will only lead to Partition, or as Yugoslavia and the USSR have shown, to Balkanisation. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, February 2003 Year 9  No. 84, Cover Story 5

The post Secularism Under Siege appeared first on SabrangIndia.

"The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence"

Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf.

The history of India over the past century unfolds like a chronicle of civil war. India was partitioned, the segment re-partitioned. "Internal enemies" were identified and massacres unleashed. No solutions were found. Today, communal myths possess nuclear bombs. There are lines of control everywhere – in villages, cities and in hearts. Barbed wire, iron gates and security guards abound. Flagpoles of religious places compete with each other for height. Society is awash with fear. Thanks to the guardians of "identity", outraged sentiment seems to be on the rampage – battling over cricket pitches, books, films and paintings.

Humanity possesses a natural tendency for remembrance and its transmission. For those interested in ideals of progress history is a laboratory of social theory. It is also the terrain of Identity, a category that sits uneasily with human equality, and has taken millions of lives. History as the maidservant of a cause undermines its own disciplinary procedures. No history is free of tendency, and historians’ convictions undoubtedly affect their output. However, just as the Euclidian point is essential to geometry, the search for truth has to remain an ideal, even if an unattainable one, for history.

This is a painful commitment, because historical materials defy dogma. None of us like our beliefs being challenged. Gandhians do not want to be reminded of the repercussions of the Khilafat movement or the Congress’ attitude to the 1946 naval mutiny. Communists are defensive about the stance of the CPI in 1942 and the Adhikari resolution supporting Partition. Admirers of Savarkar do not advertise the fact that he assisted the British war effort, was not averse to Mahasabha participation in the Muslim League ministry of NWFP in 1943, and was a main accused in the Gandhi murder trial. The Pakistan Ideology Act restrains Pakistani historians from questioning the two-nation theory or writing a non-tendentious account of Jinnah’s career. The RSS might not like to be reminded that in May 1947 the Akhil Rajya Hindu Sabha under J&K RSS chief Prem Nath Dogra, passed a resolution on Kashmir stating that "a Hindu state should not join secular India". Or that Sardar Patel accused RSS men of celebrating Gandhi’s assassination. Trotskyists don’t dwell on Bolshevik military action against the Kronstadt sailors in 1921, Stalinists don’t remember state terror and mock trials in the USSR. Nazi apologists don’t recall the Holocaust and Zionists suffer amnesia about the terror unleashed by the Haganah and Stern gangs in 1948. Japanese historians are defensive about the massacres in Nanking and Shanghai and some day Chinese historians will forget that China waged war on Vietnam in 1979 in tandem with the USA.

For some ideologues, the past is a saga of victory and defeat. The fear of ambivalence is characteristic of them and in their hands, history is pure polemic. Savarkar’s speech to the Hindu Mahasabha in 1942 described 17th century India as being "a veritable Pakistan", with "Hindustan being wiped out", and the 18th century witnessing the march of Hinduism. This anachronism is repeated in a Pakistani textbook of 1982, which teaches that in the 16th century, "`Hindustan’ disappeared and was absorbed in ‘Pakistan’". The distortions extend to contemporary analysis. Time summed up the history of the 20th century as a victory of "free minds and free markets over fascism and communism" (December 31, 1999). Along with Clinton’s essay it misrepresents the Allied victory in World War II as an American one, ignoring the role of the Red Army and the fact that the USSR lost over twenty million dead, compared to less than 3 lakh Americans. This is History as the paean of megalomania. I do not believe that all viewpoints are equally biased, or that history provides no lessons. From the welter of partiality, we may glean truths and hope – but only if our profession is motivated by respect for human experience, and not just "Hindu" or "Muslim" experience. The historian has to be an iconoclast or risk becoming a propagandist.

In an attempted refutation of Bharat Bhushan’s article The Other Italian Connection (HT Feb 18), K.R. Malkani (Feb 23) states that the RSS was founded before Moonje visited Italy, that its heroes were Indians, and that Gandhi also met Mussolini. Here is an example of history as polemic. It was the militaristic mind-set of fascism, not its specific heroes that inspired Moonje. All ultra-rightists had their own "national" heroes. Mussolini seized power in 1922, and his impact was evident by the time the RSS was founded in 1925. And whereas Moonje was greatly impressed by Mussolini, Gandhi told the latter that his state was "a house of cards", and took a dim view of the man – "his eyes are never still". Moonje’s trip was not an innocuous replica of Gandhi’s.

Defending the recent withdrawal of the ICHR volumes, government protagonists aver that the authors reduced Gandhi to a footnote. It is ironic that persons sympathetic to the politics of Gandhi’s assassin repeatedly take refuge behind Gandhi’s memory. Let us address the issue differently. Gandhi was a proponent of ahimsa. Hinduttva’s proponents believe that Hindus are too pacific – even cowardly, and need to become militant. Their heroes are those whom they identify as warriors. Their constant evocation of wounded sentiment as a justification for "direct action", prompt us to ask the government to clarify its position on violence. Should sentiment be elevated to a level superior to the needs of civic order and criminal justice? Is it surprising that a retired CBI director is so fond of the Bajrang Dal, an organisation known more for muscle than mind? That a former union minister encouraged the intimidation of a film unit? That the vandalisation of the BCCI office was condoned by a Chief Minister who saw no reason for a police case? Is it their case that Naxalite violence is wrong but violence unleashed by outraged sentiment is acceptable? Do they have the courage to say so explicitly?

The assault on the mind is the most dangerous feature of the current situation. Mushirul Hasan was attacked for suggesting that the ban on Satanic Verses be lifted. (A prominent Congressman incited that campaign). Asghar Engineer is beaten up for questioning the Syedna’s powers. Whatever happened to the rights of minorities within minorities? Demands are voiced – rather belatedly – for a ban on Dante’s Inferno. Film screenings are disrupted. Literary commentaries on the Granth Sahib result in threats of excommunication. (How brave our militants are!). And when we need a discussion on the rule of law, we indulge instead in literary criticism, film appreciation etc. Surely the point ought to be whether bad authors and filmmakers have a right to remain alive, with their bones intact. Whether the government can ensure a peaceful resolution of conflicts or if musclemen may run amuck because they have high connections. Gandhi rendered Hindus nirvirya and napunsak, said Godse. I beg to differ.

Gandhi had greater physical courage than most politicians in his time – and not many of today’s luminaries would venture forth without protection after three attempts at assassination. His ahimsa was a name for restraint, without which no society may survive and no institutions gather strength. Let us stop flaunting our boringly delicate sentiments, and address the deliberate inculcation of revenge and hatred. Those who care about human survival can see their future in the mirror of history.

(This article are fisrt publish in The Hindustan Times.)

Archived from Communalism Combat, April 2000. Year 7  No, 58, Editor's Choice

The post The Mirror of History’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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