Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Gujarat: 'Since there is no evidence that Modi himself engineered it, he is not guilty'


There is a view that the post-Godhra carnage, in which over 2000 Muslims were killed by frenzied Hindu mobs, was a pre-meditated conspiracy to use the Godhra train incident as an opportunity to cleanse Gujarat of its Muslim population. Gujarat's Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, is believed to be a part of this conspiracy. However, let us assume that he is acquitted of the charge of a pre-meditated agenda of ethnic-cleansing. Does that mean he is not culpable?

*

To answer this question, one must examine, a) the Chief Minister’s actions during the pogrom, and b) after it. 

As for Modi’s actions during the post-Godhra carnage, the affidavit of Modi’s own chief of police, DGP R.B. Sreekumar, states that Modi had prevented him from taking necessary action to prevent further escalation of violence against Muslims. According to Sreekumar, Modi “asked me to concentrate on Muslim militants... [He] instructed that I should not concentrate on the Sangh Parivar [the Hindu Right], as they are not doing anything illegal”. Further, two affidavits and a petition filed in the Supreme Court by Sanjeev Bhatt state that Modi had asked officials to let Hindus ‘vent their anger’ at the Muslims.

But let us assume that Shreekumar and Bhatt are unreliable, and that no such instructions were given by Modi. Does this let Modi off the hook? As the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi failed in his primary responsibility i.e. to preserve law and order in his state. When it collapsed, he failed to restore it. The violence continued for 182 days. Modi failed his responsibility to utilise the state machinery under his command to protect the fundamental right to life of more than 2000 Gujaratis. Hereby, Modi has achieved something historic: as CM, he has presided over violence on an unprecedented scale since Partition. The Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the Supreme Court, has reported that the Modi government delayed imposing curfew in Muslim areas, which would have reduced the killings (Hindustan Times, 27.02.2012). In his failure to protect hundreds of Gujarati women - who were raped, maimed and sexually tortured -Modi became the Chief Minister under whom the scale and extent of atrocities upon innocent women far exceeds any reported sexual crime during any previous riots in the country since partition. ­Due to his inability to prevent the carnage, 523 places of worship - 205 mosques, 298 dargahs, 17 temples, and 3 churches – were desecrated. 

But let us forget this and, instead, assume that Modi was helpless: he had tried his best to curb the riots but to no avail. Assuming that nothing could have been done during the initial riots to prevent their further escalation, let us examine Modi’s actions after the riots. Before this, we must ask what should be done after  mass violence. First, the state machinery should be utilised to identify and try the perpetrators, and punish them according to the law. Two, along with delivering justice, the victims must be shown sympathy and compassion. There must be an acknowledgement of their loss and hurt, an apology for it, concomitant with an attempt towards their rehabilitation and integration. In the 10 years since the pogrom, there should have been an active attempt to reconcile the Hindu and Muslim communities in Gujarat. If this has been achieved, Narendra Modi is worthy of exoneration. 

But Modi has not punished the policemen who let the massacres take place. On the contrary they have  been promoted. Further, he has not identified or punished those in his government (assuming that this was not done on his orders) who destroyed crucial police wireless communication records during the pogrom. Second, the SIT has confirmed allegations that the Modi government had appointed pro-BJP/RSS* advocates as public prosecutors in riot cases. It also states that police officers who took a neutral stand were transferred to insignificant postings (HT, 27.02.2012). Apart from Sreekumar and Bhatt, Rahul Sharma, a superintendent, has been charge-sheeted for giving details of the role of Sangh Parivar (the family of Hindu nationalist organisations) to the SIT without seeking permission of the state authorities. Vivek Srivastav and Himanshu Bhatt are two police officers who were transferred for trying to apprehend rioters (the former for arresting a Bajrang Dal leader and a VHP worker who were trying to foment trouble). 

In the immediate aftermath, when the atmosphere was still volatile, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Organisation) spoke of the Gujarat pogrom with pride, as ‘having shown the way’. Its general secretary Praveen Togadia spoke of Gujarat as an ‘experiment’. He said, “we will make a laboratory of the whole country. This is our promise and our resolve. If madrasas, the jihadi laboratory, are allowed to educate to kill non-Muslims, why can’t we have our own laboratory?... Gujarat has become the graveyard of secular ideology”. Let us, for a moment, even forget the links between BJP and the VHP – the militant Hindu nationalist organisation that facilitated the BJP's rise as a national-level party. What, then, was stopping Modi from banning the VHP for its incendiary remarks and its rabble-rousing? 

In a compassionate human being who was trying his best to stop a massacre, one would expect to find feelings of remorse, helplessness, and desperation. Portraying the people of Godhra as having ‘criminal tendencies’, Modi said that “... now they have done a terrible crime for which a reaction is going on”. Thus, instead of viewing the pogrom as morally reprehensible, he calmly portrayed it as a ‘natural’ reaction. If Modi is not guilty of engineering the massacres, he remains guilty of unabashedly condoning grotesque murder, rape and torture. As L.K Advani – then, the union Home Minister - admitted very openly, “... riots are a sad issue... [but].. the question of an apology does not arise”. In these ten years, Modi has not visited the victims’ homes, and has not apologised to the Muslim citizens of his state. Empathy and compassion seem to be singularly lacking in Gujarat’s strong leader.

Muslim victims have not been given the compensation they were entitled to. In many cases, the victims had neither home nor jobs to return to. Modi’s government has been very efficient in building roads, temples and Hindu business establishments over the ruins of Muslim homes. Muslim businesses in many areas have been taken over by Hindus. Even 10 years later, four families that survived the massacre at Ode - a municipality in the Anand district of Gujarat, where 47 Hindus, all Patels, killed 23 Muslims – say they feel safe only in the fields outside Kanbhaipura village. Fear and mistrust is still pervasive among the victims of Gujarat (Indian Express. 28.2.12). 

Many others still live in “transit” relief camps which have become ghetto colonies – evidence of permanent displacement. One such colony is “Citizen Nagar” - near Ahmedabad’s garbage dump at Pirana – where 183 riot-affected families have been re-located. Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat live separately and unequally. Last year, a senior academic from IIT Kanpur was forced to drop his plan of moving to the new IIT at Gandhinagar as he, being a Muslim, was unable to get a house on rent in the predominantly Hindu area where the IIT is located. A top official at IIT Gandhinagar told the Hindustan Times, “we even proposed to some societies that IIT will take the flat on rent but they bluntly said no Muslim family will be allowed to live in the flat”. 

Clearly, even if Modi himself did not have a ‘grand design’ to allow the massacre of Gujarati Muslims, he is culpable on several accounts. As the Chief Minister, he stands guilty in failing his primary responsibility to restore law and order and put an end to the violence – the riots continued for over six weeks. Moreover, Modi deserves strong censure for not condemning murder, arson, rape and torture during the pogrom. It is the very least one expects from a head of state. As the chief minister of Gujarat, he failed to show urgency in identifying the perpetrators and bringing them to justice, and has been unable to provide a sense of security to the victims of the 2002 violence, who continue to live in fear. Nor has he made any serious attempt to rehabilitate or compensate them. Narendra Modi stands guilty in his utter inability to show even an iota of sympathy and compassion.

Just as one can assume that the pogrom was beyond the Chief Minister’s control, one can talk of Modi’s inactions in terms of an ‘inability’ or him having ‘failed’. However, if one assumes that Modi is the shrewd, astute political leader he is made out to be – the one responsible for turning Gujarat into ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ with a GDP of 11%, one will find it extremely difficult to deny the role of choice and agency in Modi's actions and inactions related to the 2002 pogrom.




*RSS = Association of National Volunteers.


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 Updated information

Naroda Patiya Verdict, Aug 2012 -



Naroda Patiya survivors and witnesses  face threats - http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article3392165.ece

Amicus Curae says proceed against Modi - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3393808.ece

The cast of characters changes from one SIT version to another. And so do the stories they have to tell - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3409329.ece?homepage=true (May 12, 2012)
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Saturday, 4 February 2012

An Elegy for our Education System


From Class V all the way to Class XII, my report card invariably had the same adjectives for me: ‘hardworking’, ‘conscientious’, ‘diligent’, ‘bright’, ‘intelligent’.  And the reason for that was that from class 5 onwards there was not a single year in school that I got below an average of 83%. I was often among the ‘top 5’ in my class. The CBSE wanted me to know everything in my text-book as anything could be asked in the exam. I figured that if I knew everything in the book, I could never go wrong. But even as a teenager, a part of me was aware that I was being rewarded, not for using my brain and thinking for myself, but for mastering a technique- the technique of cramming. 

Just for the record, home was where one mastered this art. School was definitely a place to socialise, fool around with friends, and perhaps poke fun at the teachers. Very little learning actually took place inside school premises.  The best teacher I ever had was a maths teacher who was a private tutor at home. Most of the teachers at school seemed to lack passion for the subjects they taught. In the 12 long years that I spent at school (not counting ‘nursery’) I was taught by approximately 30 teachers, only two of whom I found inspiring. 

Nevertheless, the system of education at the school level was convenient for me as it always yielded good results – a pat on the back from my teachers and friends, and a sense of personal satisfaction: I was a keen learner, always worked meticulously and was thrilled when it paid off.  

But as I grew older I became increasingly aware that our education system reduced knowledge to mere information that was to be memorised and absorbed. While a part of me enjoyed the compliments from teachers and friends, another (smaller) part resented that I was being praised simply for being an expert at memorising, recapitulating and reproducing information. I was being praised not for my insight or for the questions I raised but for how perfectly I regurgitated answers.

While this did worry me (and exasperated me- it was hard work, stuffing all that information into a small part of my brain), I also reflected on the fact that cramming had served me well all my life. It had got me 88-point-something in the 10th Boards and I was willing to fall back on it again for the 12th Boards, which, at the age of 17, seemed like a matter of life and death to me. An 85 could get one into St. Stephen’s College and falling short of the cut-off mark by .25 could condemn you forever to what everybody at least saw as a just little less impressive. Even if someone told you that it was “okay even if you didn’t make it to Stephens or LSR”, you would find it hard to believe that these same people wouldn’t be a little more impressed if you introduced yourself in the future as being from St. Stephens. The name mattered, and one cannot deny that at some small level it mattered for everyone – teachers, parents, friends, parents’ friends, friends’ parents. Apparently even universities abroad knew St. Stephens College but not the other colleges in Delhi University. If cramming got me the marks, I would rely on it. I was too scared to risk using my own brain.

And my well-honed skill of being able to stop myself from using my mind was rewarded again. After an interview that seemed to test my ability to withstand intimidation rather than independent thinking, I was offered admission to read History at St. Stephen’s college!

Delhi University claims to model itself on the Oxbridge System – combining lectures with tutorials. For each topic, one was given a reading list consisting of about 20 books and articles by different scholars, each giving their interpretation of history. Being unfamiliar with how one was to make this transition from school- where one studied one text-book for all topics in a subject - to College where we were assigned twenty books for one topic, some of the students asked a lecturer how one was to go about this. The answer was categorical: “you have to read each and every book and article, and there is no way around it”. 

How was I to read and know everything in these books and articles? I tried to read an article on archaeology and got thoroughly bored. How could I possibly read all twenty books when I couldn’t even go through one article! 

How was one supposed to read so much in such short a time? I had always read and made notes on everything in the CBSE textbook but how could one read every article as thoroughly? If one couldn’t read it thoroughly and understand each word, what was the point? How was one to make notes on ten hundred-page articles? How was it supposed to all fit together? The task seemed utterly daunting. But I found an easy way out: I just simply avoided reading and made myself busy with social life in College- there were new people to meet, and new things to be discovered!

But my awareness that, in school, I had always been lauded for my excellent ability to memorise and reproduce what Bipin Chandra said had happened in history grew stronger. And it was now turning into rather intense self-doubt. Since no teacher came forth to provide guidance, I dealt with it my own way: by losing myself in taking pleasure in the novelties of college life – the independence, the lack of emphasis on discipline, new people from different schools and even different colleges now ‘chilled’ together!  

My first year at Stephen’s brought me down from being a proud 80 percent-er to a 50 percent-er. And though I knew “marks didn’t mean everything”, I concluded that they did mean something. I knew the 80% in school did not prove my intelligence, but the 50% in college definitely was not helping my self-esteem. I decided to lose the treacherous ‘backbencher’ in me and bring back the ‘conscientious’ kid.

I attended every class, paid attention, took copious notes on whatever the lecturers said or dictated, read (definitely still not all of) the readings that were assigned, attended every tutorial and even ‘prepared’ for them. I realised that there was a technique to be learnt even in College. For most tutorials, one had to know the information that had been dictated in class as ‘notes’ and had to answer a sort of quiz based on it (if one hadn’t revised class notes, one could save oneself the awkwardness by raising some interesting questions of one’s own). For the three essays one had to write in a term, one merely had to summarise what a few of the major scholars had to say on the topic. Moreover, one was absolutely free to plagiarise from books and collude with ‘senior’ or fellow students! No one seemed to care very much about my opinion and judgement, and so I figured it didn’t matter what I thought (Who was I anyway?).

I passed out of Stephen’s with a first division, and came second in my class in my final year.

15 years of education in my country- first at a top-notch school and then at one of the best known colleges in India – tried very hard to make me believe that facts are more important than thought and imagination, that it’s more important to know the answers than think critically, that exams are more important than knowledge itself. Some may say that in College the majority of us chose the convenient way out and they are right: one could have gone through the trouble of coming up with an original and coherent argument, no one was stopping us. But the system did not seem to require it. One could be rewarded even if one chose the easy way out, so why not choose it?

And that is the saddest and most dangerous thing of all. Our system of education, even at the undergraduate level, does not encourage us - in fact, gives us every opportunity not to - think independently, critically, creatively or analytically. And so daily India produces citizens who lack the capacity to think for themselves and instead defer to some authority, who lack the ability to critically examine their own beliefs, habits, customs and traditions, who find it difficult to imagine what it is like to be in the shoes of a person who is different from them, citizens who live together but cannot deliberate or reason logically with each other, who do not know how to develop an argument but instead tend to express disagreement through assertions, diatribe or, worse, violence.


If one has somehow developed a capacity for critical thinking, this can be attributed to a conducive  environment at home, an intellectually adventurous peer group or a gifted teacher, an isolated figure in her department. One can be sure that one developed these skills in spite of our education system, and not because of it.







This article was published in The Hindu on April 25, 2012. Click on the link below to view it:   

http://www.thehindu.com/education/article3352093.ece
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Thursday, 26 January 2012

The Origin of Sardarji Jokes?

I was wondering how Sardarjis became the butt of jokes considering the British had classified them as a 'martial race'. The 'Lions of Punjab' were seen by British to be everything that the effeminate Hindu (and especially Bengali Hindu) was not.  Sikhs were formidable fighters and, to top that, were considered extremely loyal to the British. Punjab was therefore the main recruiting ground for the British Indian Army. The Sikhs of Punjab proved their loyalty in during the First World War and, as an official report in 1920 on 'Disturbances in the Punjab' states, had even helped the British to 'put down the Gadr movement'. How, then, did this 'martial race' with its macho, trustworthy members become the the butt of jokes? I put this question to my father and after some discussion we arrived at a theory as to what may have led to this! 

The more learned, western-educated Bengali Hindu may have played a sneaky role in this. Bengali Hindus were the most educated and therefore posed the greatest challenge to the British Raj. To stymie this challenge, knowledge produced by the Raj made these western-educated Bengalis the object of its ridicule, portraying them as cowardly, effeminate men who ran from battle and therefore deserved conquest. 

Humiliated by the British denigration of them as cowardly and feminine, and provoked further by their comparison with Sikhs whom the British orientalists praised, in contrast, as 'masculine', the English-educated babus may have lashed out at Sardarjis, in turn making Sikhs the object of their ridicule. Sikhs were not as literate or well-educated as these Bengali babus, and coming from a rural/pastoral background, the urbanised, westernised babus may have found it easy to ridicule them as as awkward, village 'bumpkins' who did not understand urban, western, or 'modern' ways of life - akin to Charlie Chaplin's faux pas in 'Modern Times'! 

Their turbans must have been scoffed at too. This is rather curious as even respected Hindu political figures be it Gokhale, Tilak, or Malaviya and other renowned figures such as Swami Vivekananda wore turbans. Perhaps an urban, upper-caste snobbery played a role here. How dare these uneducated, uncouth rustics... these boorish, low-caste yokel adorn themselves with turbans that ought to be worn only by the urbane and the genteel?

***                                                                        

Just thought it was interesting to think of the history of The Sardarji Joke. While thinking about this, I came across a history of how Sikhs came to be associated with "barah baje" (the joke, at least as I understood it in school, was that at 12 o'clock Sikhs go bisserk for no rhyme or reason :S). The association of Sikhs with 12 o'clock apparently dates back to a story about Nadir Shah's invasion of India in 1738. Apparently, Nadir Shah's troops had plundered Delhi and captured hundreds of women. The Sikhs decided to attack Nadir Shah's camp and free the women but since they were outnumbered by the latter's army, they decided to raid his camp at midnight (12 o'clock). Due to this intervention by the Sikhs , many captive women were freed and "dignity was restored" to the Hindu community. How such stories of valour and courage were forgotten and replaced by Santa-Banta jokes, and kids in school setting their alarms to 12 o'clock and Johnny Lever looking at his watch while the little 'serdy' kid counted stars in Karan Johar's first movie is what I was interested in! 




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Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Gujarat: ‘But people want him’

Narendra Modi was re-elected as Chief Minister in the 2002 elections - ten months after the post-Godhra riots. He was re-elected again in 2007, after defeating the Congress by a wide margin. An argument made even by those who are willing to consider the charges of state-sponsorship or negligence levelled against Modi, is that the people of Gujarat themselves want him in power. If he is a democratically elected leader, who are we to question him?
*

It was through democracy that segregation was entrenched in America; the majority voted for a system founded upon discrimination against Blacks. Similarly, free and fair elections have led to the emergence of dictatorships in some places in Central Asia. In both cases, democracy was at odds with freedom. Just providing the argument that democracy is flourishing through a system of elections - does not automatically imply that freedom is flourishing, or that equality is being promoted.

In the 1990s, Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes and expelled from Bosnia and Herzegovina by Bosnian Serbs. Almost 3 lakh people were displaced. In 1995, more than 8000 Bosnian Muslims were killed and 30,000 were forcefully expelled from the town of Srebrenica. All this took place under the auspices of elected officials.  This does not justify what happened, nor does the fact that the Serbian president enjoyed tremendous popular support.

That people want a particular leader does not automatically justify his holding office. Popular opinion can often be belligerent towards ‘others’, and may even support discriminatory policies, or agendas of ethnic cleansing. Public opinion may also be influenced through silent, gradual indoctrination against a particular race, nation, religion, or caste. But can a system that allows several heads to be broken after counting them be called ‘democratic’? Indeed, to be meaningfully democratic, head counts must be followed by policies which reflect that each head counts, that every person has been treated as an equal.

Popular support through elections is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for a leader to justify his position. Any democratic leader must be judged against other criteria that qualifies a country as a liberal, constitutional democracy. In such a democracy, actions of elected officials are constrained by constitutional provisions and a commitment to civil liberties. In other words, no elected leader can act arbitrarily­. He must follow the rule of law, respect the separation of powers (between the executive, legislature and judiciary), and ensure  protection of the basic freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion etc.

The same applies to Narendra Modi. Those who are raising questions about freedom, equality and justice under his rule must not be stumped by the retort that ‘the people themselves want him in power’.  Questions about whether the other criteria of a constitutional democracy are being met by him need to be asked, and satisfactory answers must be given on those accounts. For one must remember that procedural democracy (regular elections and competitive politics) is just one among many values. Although an important one, it is by no means the supreme value- it cannot override other important values like freedom, equality and justice.  

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1) Modi re-elected in 2007 -  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/world/asia/24india.html

2)  Ethic cleansing during the Bosnian war - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnian_War

3)     Charges of genocide in Bosnia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Genocide

4) Who was the Serbian President? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milosevic#Milo.C5.A1evi.C4.87.E2.80.99s_role_in_the_Yugoslav_wars

5)     Srebrenica Massacre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre
 
6)     More on democracies and illiberalism  (and for what constitutes a constitutional democracy) - Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracies at Home and Abroad  

7)     More on democracy and violence - Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratisation and Nationalist conflict

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Thursday, 29 September 2011

Is it time to forget Gujarat?

It has been almost ten years since the Gujarat riots in which more than 2000 Muslims were killed, many of them burnt alive by Hindu mobs. During Narendra Modi’s three-day 'sadbhaavana' fast, the BJP repeatedly emphasised that Modi wants to "move ahead" but  "the so-called secularists keep harping on about the past”. A friend recently echoed this - “Gujarati Muslims want to move on. Only you so-called ‘secular’ guys keep bringing up the past. You won’t Let them move on”. So, are secularists just being unreasonable by holding on to an issue, and not letting wounds heal? 
                                                                       *

Rupa Mody is a Parsi who had lived in Gulburg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Ahmedabad. A frenzied mob had attacked it resulting in her house being burnt down. Her 12 year old son Azhar is reported as 'missing'.  The question is whether this mother wants to forget or forgive those because of whom she lost her son. Neither any secular atheists nor Hindus nor even other Muslims can speak of ‘forgiving and forgetting’ on behalf of the actual victims of 2002.

A pregnant woman’s stomach was slit open and her unborn baby paraded on a trishul. Another was stripped, made to run naked, tortured, then killed and burned. Women were raped, then tortured by inserting metal rods into their vaginas, then set on fire. These women cannot be forgotten simply because they were the victims of crimes almost a decade ago. They deserve justice.

Rupa Mody is stilling fighting for her son. The “open letter” sent by the Naroda Patiya riot victims to Modi during this ‘sadbhavana’ fast says, “Narendrabhai... have you ever peeped into the hell through which we the victims and the community, as a whole, are going through? No, you have not, and we know you have no desire or intention of giving us justice. We, therefore, dismiss your ‘Sadbhavana Mission' as just another publicity stunt”. It is obvious that the victims are still demanding answers and want to fight for justice. Then who are we to say that it is time to ‘forgive and forget’?

The accused have been charged under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for murder, attempted murder, causing grievous hurt with deadly weapons, kidnapping in order to cause grievous hurt. Our country is a constitutional democracy, and the rule of law must be followed. Till the accused are convicted of these grotesque crimes, to talk of ‘forgiving and forgetting’ is to encourage the circumvention of our constitution and law. Questions of forensic evidence, proof, and justice cannot simply be forgotten.

Modi currently faces charges of violating the International Genocide Convention ratified by India. Leading the prosecution is a lawyer of impeccable training, Indira Jaising, who alleges that the crimes resulted directly from "acts of omission and commission on part of the Gujarati governmental officials named, including Modi".    

Modi’s own chief of police, R.B. Shreekumar said in his affidavit that the police force had been pressured by political leaders into not registering riot offenses and going easy on those accused. He had apparently recommended Modi to arrest “Hindu leaders who had been involved in the heinous crimes committed”, but was told that such action "was against state policy".  There is no way of knowing the truth yet, but these charges - especially that of genocide - are extremely serious. And they need to be taken seriously. Yet, there is talk of Modi as a priministerial candidate. Yet, during the fast, on the stage stood Dr. Jaideep Patel and Atul Vaidya, the two main accused in the killing 120 and 69 persons, respectively, in the Gulberg Society and Naroda Patiya massacres.   

As responsible citizens of a constitutional democracy we must be vigilant, and certainly not try and wish away charges of rape, torture, murder and genocide. While these facts cannot be simply forgotten by the victims, they should not be forgotten by the rest of us till court cases are taken to their logical conclusion.  It is a matter of law, but also one of empathy towards fellow citizens and, even more importantly, towards fellow humans. 

Imagine that it has been ten years since your sister was raped, sexually tortured, and murdered and your parents burnt to death in front of you. Still, those whom you can identify as perpetrators are out on the streets or, worse,  running for office. And you’re being told that it is time to bury the past. But surely you can move on only after the killers of your family are identified, tried and put behind bars. You would want others to empathise with you, and would be grateful if they cared enouugh to take an interest in the injustice you have suffered. You would certainly not interpret it them  'harping on about the past'.

So why should it be different with the victims of Gujarat? Their past must be talked about. Cases must be followed very closely till the accused are put behind bars. This is the only way they can heal and even think of forgetting, leave alone forgiving. Those who use the discourse of ‘forgive and forget’ without this being done first not only show a lack of respect for law, but also betray a reprehensible lack of empathy – and ‘sadbhaavana’­ - for the victims.  

 _______________________________________________________


1) What was the Gulbarg Society Massacre? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulbarg_Society_massacre


3) BJP's statements about 'forgive and forget' and Modi wanting to 'move ahead' on NDTV - http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-buck-stops-here/the-modi-makeover-has-it-worked/211319 (see also for Rupa Mody's reaction to Mody's fast)

4) The international convention Modi is accused of flouting: UN convention on Genocide (see also for the definition of ‘genocide’)- http://www.un.org/millennium/law/iv-1.htm

5) More on Rupa Mody

- Begged for police help but to no avail- http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_i-begged-for-help-from-police-commissioner-rupa-mody-tells-court_1310039
- Search for her son - http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/mosiqiacharya/84/1318/search-for-azhar.html
              
6) Riot victims arrested in September 2011; also, their open letter to Modi -


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Saturday, 17 September 2011

Why Not Make Anna Irrelevant?


The Anna movement drew criticism from many people for various reasons. Most of my peers kept a conscious distance from the movement or remained sceptical of it. Some saw thousands of people out on the streets as a sign of ‘belligerence’ or a ‘law and order’ problem created by mismanagement of the government. Some questioned the motive of Team Anna, claiming that they intended to subvert parliamentary democracy. Others criticised the involvement of the Hindu right, citing instances of mobilisation by the RSS. I took a stance, questioned it again and again and tried to make it as informed an opinion as possible. This is what I think.    

Anna and the Hindu Right

It is true that right wing elements were part of the movement. Anti-corruption has been the central plank of the BJP since the 1980s. Moreover, it came to power in the 1990s precisely due to people’s dissatisfaction with scandals, corruption and cronyism under the Congress. That the right wing will try to piggyback on an anti-corruption movement when the Congress is in power was predictable. It is the party of opposition and it has been provided with a stick to beat the Congress with and a golden opportunity to come back into power. The Right affiliated itself with the movement. But while this is true, to say that the Anna movement is therefore a ‘right-wing movement’ seems to be an incorrect inference. The Right’s affiliation with Anna is purely instrumental, and does not automatically lead to the conclusion that there is also an ideological affiliation between the two. 

Some have criticised the movement for being inadequately representative of weaker or marginalised sections of society such as Dalits and Muslims. Their response to Anna breaking his fast by taking a glass of coconut water from a Muslim and a Dalit girl was as predictable as the Right’s piggy-backing. Such ‘token’ representation means nothing, they said. But this movement aimed to highlight a specific issue that affects us all at different levels: corruption. All were formally invited to join in - it did not exclusively invite only higher castes or only Hindus or only men to join. It did not claim to be an overtly exclusive movement. If the right-wing RSS was mobilising people, the secular people of India had every right to put Muslims and Dalits at ease and bring them within the fold of the movement. If the religious right was mobilising people, what was stopping the left-leaning secular elements from mobilising as well?

But even if a mass movement did not start off as a right wing movement, the possibility of being hijacked by the Hindu right was a legitimate concern. Many left-leaning secularists remained wary of the movement because of this. However, neither their mere presence nor any mobilisation by the right wing automatically leads to the conclusion that the Anna movement had already been hijacked by the right.  Using this as a reason not to support Anna Hazare and to brand it as ‘fascist’ – a term casually used for almost anything undesirable - just because of piggybacking by right wing elements sounds like a lazy excuse. It betrays a tendency to protest and oppose without careful consideration and reveals an inability to provide constructive suggestions. 

Others criticised the movement for focussing too narrowly on ‘monetary corruption’, attacking it for ignoring ‘socio-religious corruption’ of the caste system. The caste system is despicable, inhumane and inexcusable: it is based on subordination, humiliation, degradation and exploitation. It is definitely as important an issue as monetary corruption. My reply to those who were against the Anna movement due to this reason would be that they are expecting Anna to be a magical Mahatma and this movement to strike at the root of too many problems at one stroke. This betrays a lack of understanding about how a mass movement can engage with the government successfully. Second, monetary corruption diverts funds allocated for development and schemes meant for lower castes and Dalits, and tackling it will help these sections of society as well. And finally, why not join the movement and raise it as an issue, instead of attacking the very movement itself?

Another reason why some kept a distance from the movement was due to the use of national symbols. The argument is that Hindu nationalists have used these very symbols – like the national flag – to create fear among the minorities, and therefore they must not be used.


It is true that the Indian flag can and does create among certain minorities because of its possible association with aggressive nationalism or majoritarianism. However, does it really make sense to be sceptical or cynical about the use of the flag simply because it has been misused in the past or can be misused in the future? The point is to gauge how the flag is being used in the present movement, and the dominant vibe at Ramlila was of the flag being used simply as a symbol of the hope for India’s regeneration.

The Indian flag is not a Hindu symbol,  nor is it a cultural one. It is a national, constitutional symbol and every citizen has a right to carry it. To say that one should be wary of carrying it because it has been misused in the past is to play right into the hands of the very Hindu Nationalists that you are opposing. It amounts to letting Hindu nationalists dictate to secular forces whether or not they should carry their national symbol! Moreover, it sets a dangerous precedent by succumbing to the fear that Hindu Nationalists thrive on and by letting them appropriate the national flag! Surely the way forward is to make minorities who feel alienated from the flag and from India, less alienated, not more alienated. For those concerned about the use of the flag further alienating these communities, the more responsible move would have been to put them at ease and try and include them, rather than encouraging them to exclude themselves further simply because of a fear that they had of the possibility of how the movement might turn out. 

When I asked a butcher at the meat shop that I go to about his view on Anna he said ‘I support him. I went to Ramlila every day. Maybe our India now has a chance to become the ‘golden bird’ it once was”. When I asked another Muslim bhaiya at Ramlila Maidan whether he was scared this was a Hindu movement and might turn into something like the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, he dismissed the idea: “Madam, that would be mixing up different issues. This is for the good for our country”. The Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari who appealed to Muslims to stay away from the Anna movement has drawn flak from other community leaders. The General Secretary of the All-India Ulema Council, Maulana Mehmood Daryabadi said that Bukhari’s personal view should not be taken as the view of the whole community. The Maharastra Urdu Writer’s Guild stated that slogans such as ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ are the ways of expressing love for the country and should be taken in the right context. Guild president Salam Bin Razzak stated that “Muslims may not worship the motherland but their love for it is second to none. Bukhari is needlessly communalizing the movement against corruption." My point is not that all Muslims feel this way. But at least some do and we must acknowledge it and encourage it, rather than discourage it on the basis of our own anxieties or assumptions.

Anna and ‘the masses’

Rejecting such arguments for not supporting the movement does not mean one is unaware of its possible dangers. Many criticisms of the phenomenon by the upper middle class that filled English news studios arose out of the awareness that mass movements are tricky, and are not easy to control. While their spontaneity can be beautiful, it can also cause great unease because there always lurks a possibility of it spiralling out of control. At its peak, a mass movement seems like an aneurysm on the verge of bursting. This is a legitimate apprehension. But should the fear of another Chauri Chaura prevent us from supporting a mass movement that is currently peaceful and aims to remain so? In other words, should the mere possibility of a danger prevent you from seizing an opportunity to change the status quo? Being aware of the danger of the possibility of a movement spinning out of control is important – it cautions one against any step that might lead to such an outcome. But to not participate in a movement for a good cause simply out of fear that it might spiral out of control is something that has prevented those who want to see a certain change stand in its very way.

The majority of the upper middle class intelligentsia that appeared on English news channels seemed to be petrified by the sight of masses being out on the streets. This utter distrust of all popular sentiment was akin to the reactions of the Moderates or ‘Liberals’ who feared Gandhi’s ‘radical’ methods of mass mobilisation and distanced themselves from it. If you were sceptical of the Anna movement because you feel that ‘mass hysteria can never achieve anything’ (as one friend said), you might want to rethink where you would have stood as a contemporary on Gandhi’s mass ‘national’ movements against British colonialism. If while reading about Gandhian mass movements in history class, you imagined yourself as part of the non-cooperation movement or the civil disobedience movement or the Quit India movement, you might want to think again. This is not a judgement (Gandhi wasn’t always right); it is merely a provocation to think about your own perception of your counterfactual self.

But the belief that nothing can be achieved by ‘mass hysteria’ is quite different from the worry that masses of people were participating in a movement which aimed to bring about a bill which the majority of people had not even read! Further, some correctly pointed out that many of those supporting the movement had in all probability themselves paid bribes at some point of time or the other. How can one be part of such hypocrisy? 

But the fact that this movement struck a chord with so many ‘hypocrites’ also reveals something about at least some of them: if they have paid bribes, they are not entirely happy about their own hypocrisy and they do not mind giving ethical conduct a shot if someone else does the dirty job of cleaning up the system for them first.

Anna and parliamentary democracy

Till now I have argued assuming that the movement was for a ‘good cause’. But was it? Some journalists, academics and intellectuals were vehemently against the movement, alleging that it was ‘anti-parliamentarian’. There were those who argued that Team Anna sought ‘regime change’, wanted to topple the government or wanted to replace parliamentary democracy with some kind of benign dictatorship. Rahul Bose on CNN-IBN was convinced that the motive of Team Anna was to subvert parliamentary democracy. This is quite different from the fear that in the hurry and determination to get this billed passed Team Anna was making proposals which might amount to subversion of the normal parliamentary procedure. The label ‘anti-parliament’ confuses these two issues.

The concern about the subversion of parliamentary procedures is a legitimate one. Determination to eradicate corruption should not lead to diversion from the standard parliamentary procedures, and should not lead to the passage of the bill which might, because of the hurried nature in which it was passed, lead to the rise of a super-state body that might ultimately subvert parliamentary democracy. However, articulating this legitimate worry is quite different from attributing motives to Team Anna purely on the basis of speculation. Accusing them of wanting to subvert the democratic process and establish their own autocratic coterie is quite different from accusing them of being politically naive, even though the latter might turn out to have as dangerous a consequence.

So was Team Anna conspiring? Who are the key members of ‘Team Anna’? Prashant Bhushan is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, Arvind Kejriwal was an officer in the Indian Revenue Service, Kiran Bedi is a retired IPS officer.  Members of Team Anna consists not of ‘twitterati’ but of persons who have tried their hand at the system, have tried to work within it, have tried to bring about reform from within it.  In an article in ‘The Caravan’, Mehboob Jeelani describes how Kejriwal did not fit in easily with his colleagues in the IRS due to ‘...his discomfort with what he has described as a culture of corruption. He began to realise nothing got done in his office without bribes and kickbacks, and by 2000, his frustration had reached a boiling point. Kejriwal started exhorting unhappy citizens who had been poorly served by his corrupt co-workers to file petitions against them in court’. As an IRS officer he ‘helped people obtain their old-age pensions without paying bribes, and filed complaints against income tax officers who colluded with tax evaders’.  If one puts oneself in the shoes of Kejriwal and other members of Team Anna, it is not hard to imagine their frustration and anger with the system, something that showed when they spoke of MPs and politicians in their Ramlila speeches.

Were their comments about MPs during their Ramlila speeches a reflection of their desire to mobilise public opinion against democracy? Or had they just got a bit carried away in the heat of the moment? While many friends suspected the former, it turned out to be the latter.  Since none of us knew Team Anna personally how could one have predicted this? Gauging the intention of someone is an intuitive skill. An observation of their past and present actions would obviously help.

Before Ramlila, had Team Anna resorted to any undemocratic methods? Was there anything undemocratic about protesting outside Jantar Mantar, negotiating with the government, carrying out their ‘referendums’? Wasn’t this evidence of them still working within the system? Some said, ‘but even Hitler initially came to power through democratic means’. Still, while the worry is appreciated, why doubt the ingenuity of Kejriwal when he came out in the end to clarify that he respects the constitution and the parliament? Why doubt Kiran Bedi, despite her controversial remarks and her ‘ghunghat’ act, when she reiterates that she does not want to be ‘put in a box’ by ever joining any political party? Was there anything in their past that gave us reason to? It is important to look for those reasons, but when nothing significant is found, it might be worthy to lower those anxieties.

There were many among the educated upper middle class strata/intelligentsia who were criticising or questioning the movement. Arundati Roy, Tavleen Singh, Seema Chishti, Javed Akhtar, Rahul Bose are some of the prominent names that come to mind. They raised important questions: what is their background? Are they being driven by some other organisation? Is there an underlying motive? Who funds these guys? What are the implications of this bill? Is it democratic and constitutional? But some of them not only raised important questions but also had ready and uninformed answers to their own questions! Scepticism is healthy and raising concerns about the unintended consequences of a movement is an important component of democracy. But keeping your eyes and ears open is quite different from assuming and attributing a malicious motive to the movement. Nevertheless, such scepticism and criticism is healthy in a democracy and might have helped to keep a check on the direction that the movement might have been taking.

Team Anna’s present actions also provided some hints as to its intent. The fact that the fast ended as promised when their 3 conditions had been met by the government, that Team Anna is not hogging the limelight but continues to work on behalf of ‘civil society’, and has left it up to the standing committee to discuss the various bills is surely enough reassurance that Team Anna had never intended to topple the government and still has faith in the institution of the parliament.

Why I supported Anna

But even if one concludes that Team Anna had no intention of undoing democracy, it could still consist of people who were well-intentioned but politically naive. The thought of a bunch of good-hearted, well-meaning people, in their hurry and determination to eradicate corruption, getting a law enacted that ultimately leads to the emergence of a super-state, ‘big brother’-like Lokpal is as frightening.  If it is true that this was a possibility with the Jan Lokpal Bill, it is a great relief that all the four Lokpal bills are going to be discussed by the standing committee, as should be done in any case. It is a relief that Team Anna is accepting, as it should, a clause-by-clause discussion of the various bills. Perhaps this is reassurance that Team Anna is responsive to concerns being raised and does believe in deliberative democracy. If at any point Team Anna goes against this, one must object strongly.

I personally have no great love for Anna Hazare. I admire his belief in non-violence and his hatred for corruption. But if he praises any leader alleged to have been involved in communal riots, it would worry me. If people are flogged in his village for drinking, I oppose it. If he, like Gandhi- at least till the late 1930s, believes that each caste has the duty to follow only a particular occupation, I am against this. I disagree with his hyperbolic statement of ‘Hang all corrupt politicians’ and was relieved when he withdrew it.   

But Anna Hazare has captured the imagination of people neither because of his view of Modi nor because of his belief in prohibition. He is not admired because of his views on caste. Not even because he is considered almost like a second Gandhi. He is admired by the aam aadmi because he has attached himself to an issue that affects every ordinary person at some level or the other. Many Indians, even if they have sometimes found them personally beneficial or convenient, have also found the state institutions frustratingly inefficient, ineffective and extortionist.   

Whether or not the Jan Lokpal bill is flawed, Anna’s movement was successful in tapping on the discontentment among ordinary people about the status quo ‘kaam chalaoo’ attitude that is so institutionalised in India. Its success lies most in getting us ‘hypocrites’ to think and change our stance from ‘this is just how India works, and it benefits me sometimes so why go through the trouble of changing it?’ to ‘though it benefits me at times, I am not entirely comfortable with corruption. I am not willing to devote my time to change this state of affairs, but if these guys are, I will support them. I am willing to give the alternative and more ethical way a chance’. To make so many people rethink their own mentality is an extremely significant development. This is the reason I chose to support the movement. This, and the hope that the political class will take note of the crisis of legitimacy that it suffers from. People crave a political leadership that they can look up to and institutions which they can trust. Anna Hazare, through his fast– the controversial threat tactic that many have deemed as blackmail and bullying– created a ‘crisis’ for the government, but also presented it with a brilliant opportunity to reinvent itself.

If one fears that an Anna cult might be emerging, one should also look into the reasons why this would be possible. The persona of Anna, the virtuous anti-corruption crusader, has been made possible by the crisis of legitimacy that not only the Indian political class suffers from but also the police, the administrative bureaucracy, even the courts.

I do not want a benign dictatorship. I want Indian parliamentary democracy to be reformed and function without a cash-for-votes scam, without illegal mining, without vote bank politics, without the juvenile political discourse which hampers level-headed discussion on important issues. Anna Hazare has legitimacy because state institutions and politicians have been delegitimized by their own actions. And those who would ‘rather not be Anna’ and think that he is regressive or medieval, have a special responsibility to push for reform and proper functioning of Indian parliamentary democracy so that our political class and institutions can regain their lost legitimacy. A personality cult cannot easily emerge in a country where citizens trust their political system. If India was such a country, Anna Hazare would be irrelevant. So if you fear Anna or are against him, why not seize this opportunity and make him irrelevant?

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