January 16, 2006
Critical Digressions: Beyond Winter in Karachi (or the Argumentative Pakistani)
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
Recently in town for the British tour, cricket reporter Andrew Miller observes,
“One of the first things you notice about Karachi, so long as you’re not being hot-boxed in a rickshaw as the morning traffic crawls to a halt, is the improbable clarity of the air. Despite being home to 14 million intensely active inhabitants, there’s none of the oppressive smog that lingers over Lahore like a caggy blanket. As the sea breezes work their magic and dissipate the city’s exhaust fumes, it’s possible too to see through some of the thick layers of misconception that abound about the place.”
During winter in Karachi, the sunlight is soft and milky during the day and after dusk the air becomes cool and wafts firewood and the sea. The billboards down Shahrah-e-Faisal flash and buzz and the wedding halls in and around the wide boulevards of Nazimabad and Hyderi are lit like carnivals. Winter is wedding season, Jinnah’s birthday, Christmas time, new year. In Saddar, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, garlanded by Christmas lights, glows something like a medieval structure in downtown Prague. At Clifton beach, floodlights animate the swelling gray sea and the silhouettes of families skipping on the silt. On New Year, tens of thousands of Karachites flood the beachfront on the backs of motorbikes, chanting, waving flags, celebrating themselves and the city.
This year, however, a shadow has fallen over the city’s winter pageantry. A few months ago the earth opened up in the north and swallowed up mountains, roads, schools, villages, people. The earthquake in Kashmir is a catastrophe of epic proportion: a hundred thousand dead, three million displaced. The numbers bewilder; and grow: the severe northern winter is now claiming thousands every day. (We urge you to contribute generously, immediately.)
Although far away, the tremors of the earthquake have reached Karachi: not only does the city host a large Kashmiri population but possesses the requisite infrastructure to provide relief. From the city’s efficient political machinery – notably the MQM and the Jamaat – to the remarkable civic organizations – the Edhi Welfare Trust and the Citizens Foundation – all have been involved in the relief and present reconstruction effort. Moreover, students from high-schools and colleges, some who have never left Karachi, are volunteering in far-flung Muzaffarabad and Balakot.
Fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations, Mahnaz Isphahani notes that “an August 2000 study by the Agha Khan Development Network rated Pakistan as one of the most charitable countries,” a remarkable statistic for a developing country. “It shows. The private sector, non governmental organizations, political parties and thousands of volunteers led the relief efforts. The earthquake has driven a unique mobilization of Pakistan’s civil society.” Rugged individualists, Pakistanis don’t come together often. But when they do, they seem to move mountains.
Pakistan routinely makes headlines for being a “frontline state” on the “War on Terror,” a function of its geography which is defined by a collection of tribal fiefdoms in north, Muslim fundamentalist Iran to the West, and until recently, Hindu fundamentalist India in the East. Consequently other developments escape discourse. Save a piece or two, there has been no coverage of the remarkable summoning of national resources toward relief and reconstruction. Indeed the earthquake has often been essentialized in mainstream media as a matter of five or six Indian army helicopters that were not accepted by the government. As usual, many dimensions have escaped scrutiny.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, however, political commentator Husain Haqqani picks up on an interesting development:
“So much for the popularly peddled view that anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is so pervasive and deep-rooted it might take generations to alter. A new poll from Pakistan, a critical front-line in the war on terror, paints a very different picture - by revealing a sea-change in public opinion in recent months…Pakistanis now hold a more favorable opinion of the U.S. than at any time since 9/11…The direct cause for this dramatic shift in Muslim opinion is clear: American humanitarian assistance for Pakistani victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed 87,000. The U.S. pledged $510 million for earthquake relief in Pakistan and American soldiers are playing a prominent role in rescuing victims from remote mountainous villages.”
There are other seismic developments in the north that have escaped attention. A few months ago, the Hasbah bill made headlines everywhere. The procrustean legislation, passed by provincial assembly in Peshawar (the capital of NWFP, the province bordering Afghanistan), would have created a moral police. In December, however, the Supreme Court definitively struck it down. This, of course, did not make the news anywhere. (We urge you do do a google search on the issue). Furthermore, the sponsors of the bill, the MMA, the Islamist party that won some seats after the second Afghan campaign, has been unable to subsequently pursue it. Sirajul Haq, a senior provincial minister in the MMA, claims in the Herald that “some people in Islamabad are allergic to the word Islam.” Indeed, Musharraf’s administration came down like a ton of bricks on the mullahs.
Of course, Haq’s Islam is not Pakistani Islam; the personality of Pakistani Islam is inherently accommodative. Whenever we return home, for instance, we visit the shrines of Sufi saints in and around Karachi, from Mayvah Shah deep in a necropolis featuring a Jewish cemetery to perhaps one of the most intriguing tombs in all of South Asia, Udero Lal (or Duryah Shah). Here, people congregate on Thursday nights, singing, dancing, smoking chars. The weekly festival features fortune-tellers, wrestling competitions, food stalls. Near the beach, at Abdullah Shah Ghazi, we pay homage to the saint who is said to have saved Karachi from the sea. In the limestone cave behind the tomb there is talk of other miracles. This time around we visited a couple of Hindu temples, including Shree Ratneswar Mahdevi, a five minute saunter from Abdullah Shah. There, we were taken to a limestone cave underneath and briefed about miracles. No doubt, the two caves are connected. Whether you talk about the Barelvi Punjabi countryside or the Maulai Sindhi interior, the weddings rituals or notions of hygiene, the infrastructure of Pakistan’s Islam rests on a syncretistic heritage. And Islam got more civilized the further it moved away from Arabs and Arabia (and arguably is most accommodative in the Far East).
Another exciting development in the north is the emergence of Sajid and Zeeshan, a solidly middle class, Peshawar-based, electronic pop duo. Their thoughtful but finger-snapping, hip-shaking singles “King of Self” and “Freestyle Dive” (that we urge you dowload from their website) have topped the charts and if marketed successfully, their upcoming album can take dancefloors worldwide by storm. The latter’s animated video – featuring a bank robber who suffers a pang of conscience – was nominated for best video at the Indus Music Awards (held, by the way, with great pomp on the lawns of the Karachi Parsi Institute on December 24th.) Sajid and Zeeshan are the face of contemporary Pakistan, resolute members of the Media Generation, heterodox rockers who unlike mullahs don’t worry about what Pakistan should be, about silly notions of authenticity, but are confident that what they do is by definition, Pakistani.
Indeed, the Media Generation is redefining notions of self and sovereignty in a way that no prior generation has before, a phenomenon we have covered in this column earlier. This winter, the Media Generation is responsible for the superb Kara Film Festival and for bringing Bryan Adams to Karachi later this month for a benefit concert (where some twenty thousand are expected to attend). It was also responsible for local channels broadcasting Christmas programming on Christmas eve: not only was there a Christmas address by the Prime Minister to the a large gathering on PTV but Christmas carols on TV1, and on GEO (the most watched entertainment channel), a serial on prime-time featuring Pakistani Christian family, a first. This is the stuff that changes sensibilities. For instance, at Nasra School, one the largest private urban school networks for lower-middle and middle class students, the topic for the annual middle school debates this year (reminescent of the program “50 Minutes” on GEO) was, “Should Pakistan develop relations with Israel?”
The sports channels are commemorating another event: Pakistan walloping England in cricket. For years, Pakistan had been in the wilderness, a team with few stars, little direction, no guts. Things began turning in 2005 with Pakistan's resounding defeat of India in India. England, on the other hand, was coming off an historic victory over Australia, the best team in the world, and was favored to win. But as with India, the Pakistan boys made chapli kebab out of them. Under the squinty, watchful gaze of Inzi, “The Big Easy,” their towering Punjabi captain who has finally come into his own, Danesh Kaneria, the Hindu leg spinner, took wicket after wicket after wicket as Shahid Afridi, the blue eyed Pathan from Karachi, transformed from a streaky opener to the most explosive batsman in cricket today, swatting pitches as if he were playing street cricket with a tape ball. Cricket reporter Kamran Abbasi avers, “There is a Pakistani way in cricket, abundant talent abundantly flawed, that leaves you holding your breath in anticipation of the next act and staring in disbelief if it comes off.” We see things somewhat differently. The cricket team can be thought as a proxy for nation: rugged individualists with varied styles and backgrounds who against all odds somehow come together at critical junctures to come out on top.
Other Critical Digressions:
The Media Generation and Nazia Hassan
The Naipaulian Imperative and the Phenomenon of the Post-National
Literary Pugilists and Underground Men
Gangbanging and Notions of the Self
Dispatch from Cambridge (or Notes on Deconstructing Chicken)
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It would be nice if the Pakistani cricket team really was some expression of unity in Pakistan. However, there seems to be strong evidence for Muslim coercion in the cricket team and the development of a fairly strong Muslim conversion and preaching effort in the team, led by Saeed Anwar's brother. Somehow Mohammed Younus decided to convert, and there are persistent rumors that they will get to Danish at some point too.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Jan 16, 2006 2:27:51 PM
One of these days, your joyous celebrations of Karachi may convert me from my pessimism...
Good going, mate!
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Jan 16, 2006 7:00:23 PM
Great Post Hussain!
I thought the most interesting element of it was the emphasis you place on the 'solidly middle class'. To much of western and indeed Indian perception of Pakistan is based either on contact with the detached elite or visions of urban slums and rural villages. Not to say that they don't exist, but they are only part of the cultural fabric.
(Also, thankfully Sajid and Zeeshan are not only not mullahs but are also not like the ridiculously pretentious Salman Ahmed of Junoon)
Hektor, I think 'muslim coercion' is a bit strong. Bear in mind that Bob Woolmer, a genuine man of the world is the coach and is unlikely to stand for aggressive religion. You also have people like Shoaib, Younis and Afridi who aren't overtly religious. I think Islam in the team can be summed up in Inzamam - sincere yet humble. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
Posted by: reformist muslim | Jan 16, 2006 7:15:09 PM
bravo, hussain, how refreshing to hear some good , no ,great things about my hometown. i knew thhat someday karachi will be'found'. and how well have you done by karachi. keep the faith and wax eloquent again and again. Tariq k Columbia Md.
Posted by: tariq khan | Jan 16, 2006 8:23:04 PM
fromt the dawn. an article by irfann hussain on the state of minoritites in your beloved karachi/pakistan.
Conversion losses
By Irfan Husain
MEET Sanno Amra and his wife Champa: a middle-aged Hindu couple. They live in a small, simple but spotlessly clean home in Karachi’s Punjab Colony.
Until six weeks ago, they lived with their five children, reasonably content with their lot. Sanno worked as a chauffeur, and his wife cooked for a family. On October 18, their lives suddenly fell apart: Champa returned home from work to discover that her three oldest daughters were missing — Reena (21), Usha (19) and Rima (17) had seemingly vanished without a trace. This is any parent’s worst nightmare, but the couple’s woes had only begun.
After searching frantically for the girls, they went to the local police station where the SHO put them off without registering a case. A couple of days later, they met the deputy superintendent of police for Clifton. This proved to be the only bright spot in the entire tragic episode, for DSP Raza Shah went out of his way to help. He forced his subordinates to file an FIR, and his intervention was invaluable in ensuring the safety of the parents. And just for the record, the MQM ‘sector-in- charge’ also lent them his organisation’s support.
On October 22, a police FIR for kidnapping was duly prepared, naming three young men from the neighbourhood as the principal suspects. Immediately, Sanno and his wife started getting threats from their neighbours. Earlier they had never had any problems, although they were the only Hindu family in a predominantly Muslim locality. But now, the same people were pressuring them to remove the names of the local boys from the FIR.
Within days, they received a package by courier containing three identical affidavits signed by their daughters, stating that they had converted to Islam of their own free will. The declaration concluded: “That since my parents are Hindu and after conversion of my religion, it is not possible for me to live and pass my life in Hindu system/society [sic] and therefore, I have decided to live separately...”
According to their affidavits, the girls (now calling themselves Afshan, Anam and Nida) were living in the hostel of the Madarsa Taleem-ul-Quran, and were being instructed by a local moulvi. On November 10, a court order directed the police and the administrators of the seminary to arrange a meeting between the girls and their parents.
When Sanno and Champa finally met their daughters, they were shocked to see that they were in burqas that concealed them from head to toe, leaving only their eyes uncovered. The eyes of the youngest girl were bloodshot from weeping. At this supposedly private meeting, a dour woman was present throughout as were a moulvi and a couple of cops. In subdued voices muffled by heavy fabric, the girls said they wanted to stay where they were.
Understandably, the parents are convinced that their daughters were under pressure. In fact, they simply cannot come to terms with the notion that their children have not only abandoned them, but also the faith they grew up in. As far as they are concerned, their daughters have been brainwashed. Interestingly, the girls have cited “religious channels on TV” as the reason for their conversion.
Since their daughters left, Sanno and Champa have not returned to their jobs. They stay at home with Suraj and Arti, their young son and daughter and wait for news. Apart from their neighbours, they have also been isolated by their own community. According to Sanno, other Hindus look down on them because of their girls’ apparent conversion. Face, that most pernicious of Asian values, has been lost.
I spoke to DSP Raza Shah and asked him if in his opinion, any pressure had been brought to bear on the girls. He was sure it had been a voluntary conversion, adding that it was very possible that neighbours might have influenced them. The parents are clear that their daughters never watched TV in their presence, nor did they ever discuss the possibility of a conversion. According to Vijay, a relative, twenty girls from the Hindu community had converted to Islam in the last five years.
Talking to the parents in their simple home, I could feel their pain and their distress. “We just sit and stare at each other”, Sanno said. “For us, life is over.” Above all, they want the certainty of the knowledge that their daughters did not abandon them voluntarily. They went back to the madressah recently where they were refused access to their daughters. “Even if they have become Muslims, we are still their parents,” Champa said tearfully. The moulvi at the madressah, instead of being sympathetic, invited Sammo and Champa to convert as well.
What the stricken parents are looking for is closure: once they are satisfied that their daughters will never come home again, they will learn to live with their grief. But for this to happen, they want the girls to be moved to neutral ground like the Edhi orphanage where they can meet them without the coercive presence of moulvis and cops. But this request has been turned down by a judge.
Vijay has shared the family’s tribulations, and is understandably bitter. “Mr Jinnah had promised the minorities equal rights and protection. But it seems his promises were buried with him,” he maintains. Given the spate of conversions, some voluntary, some forced, the insecurity among the minorities, especially among Sindhi Hindus, is understandable.
Even if most of these conversions are not at gunpoint, they still take place in an overpowering environment of religiosity. Religious programmes on every private and public TV channel must leave an imprint on young minds. The need to conform at school and college where religion casts a constant shadow, must exert a subtle influence on non-Muslim students. And in a society based on faith, the minorities have been marginalized to the point where they are tempted to convert simply to get ahead in life.
But Sammo and Champa are not concerned with the larger issues regarding the place and fate of the minorities in Pakistan. All they want is justice. For them this involves being able to spend time alone with their beloved daughters, free from pressure and coercion, and to satisfy themselves that they took this drastic step on their own. Surely in a state that aspires to General Musharraf’s oft-touted ideal of ‘enlightened moderation’, this should not be too much to ask for.
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/20051203.htm
Posted by: Subheer | Jan 17, 2006 6:20:16 PM
Wanchu bhai here is the state of minorities in your beloved secular Hindustan. Very sorry to hear.
Hinduism and Terror
By Paul Marshall
June 1, 2004
Since September 11, 2001, the world's attention has properly been focused on the violence of Islamic extremism, but there are also major violent trends in Hindu extremism that have largely been ignored in the United States. In India, this violence is supported by Hindu extremists and their allies in the Indian government, which is currently led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
One reason for our lack of attention here is that India is not a religiously reactionary state like Saudi Arabia or Iran, and in fact faces its own threats from Islamist militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir, as well as Islamist terrorist attacks throughout the country, most notably the dramatic storming of the Indian parliament in 2001 and the deadly bombing in Bombay that killed fifty-two people in August 2003. India is a strong ally in the war on terrorism and continues to have strong democratic traditions and institutions. It has developed friendlier relations with America and Israel; Ariel Sharon made a state visit in September. The Indian government has also loosened the previously heavily regulated economy to produce one of the highest growth rates in the world, and the Bombay stock market rose 50 percent in 2003. Yet despite these strengths, there is much sectarian hatred in India and it is expressed in frequent, sometimes programmatic, violence.
In the past decade, extremist Hindus have increased their attacks on Christians, until there are now several hundred per year. But this did not make news in the U.S. until a foreigner was attacked. In 1999, Graham Staines, an Australian missionary who had worked with leprosy patients for three decades, was burned alive in Orissa along with his two young sons. The brutal violence visited on Muslims in Gujarat in February 2002 also brought the dangers of Hindu extremism to world attention. Between one and two thousand Muslims were massacred after Muslims reportedly set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists, killing several dozen people.
These attacks were not inchoate mob violence, triggered by real or rumored insult; rather, they involved careful planning by organized Hindu extremists with an explicit program and a developed religious-nationalist ideology. Like the ideology of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamists, this ideology began to take shape in the 1920s as a response to European colonialism. It rejected the usually secular outlook of other independence movements; in place of secularism, it synthesized a reactionary form of religion with elements of European millenarian political thought, especially fascism.
Until the nineteenth century, the word "Hindu" had no specific religious meaning and simply referred to the people who lived east of the Indus River, whatever their beliefs. (The Indian Supreme Court itself has held that "no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms 'Hindu' and 'Hinduism.'") It was only when the census introduced by the British colonial authorities in 1871 included Hindu as a religious designation that many Indians began to think of themselves and their country as Hindu.
Twentieth-century agitation against the British led to the rise not only of the secular and socialist Congress movement but also of the rival Hindu nationalist movement collectively known as the Sangh Parivar ("family of organizations"). The Parivar proclaims an ideology of "Hindutva," aimed at ensuring the predominance of Hinduism in Indian society, politics, and culture, which it promotes through tactics that include violence and terror. Its agenda includes subjugating or driving out Muslims and Christians, who total some 17 percent of the population. It castigates them as foreign faiths, imposed by foreign conquerors--even though Christians trace their origins in India to the Apostle Thomas in the first century and Islam came to India in the seventh and eighth centuries.
The Sangh Parivar's central organization is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded by Keshav Hedgewar in 1925. Hedgewar was influenced by V. D. Savarkar, who believed that Hindus were the descendants of the ancient Aryans and properly formed a nation with a unified geography, race, and culture. Savarkar's 1923 book Hindutva--Who is a Hindu? declared that those who did not consider India as both fatherland and holy land were not true Indians--and that the love of Indian Christians and Muslims for India was "divided" because each group had its own holy land in the Middle East.
M. S. Golwalkar, the RSS's sarsangchalak (supreme director) from 1940 to 1973, sharpened these themes. In 1938, commenting on the Nuremberg racial laws, he declared: "Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us ... to learn and profit by." In an address to RSS members the same year, he also asserted: "If we Hindus grow stronger, in time Muslim friends ... will have to play the part of German Jews." He insisted that "the non-Hindu ... must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion... Or [they] may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges." On March 25, 1939, the Hindu nationalist Mahasabha Party, an RSS ally, likewise proclaimed: "Germany's solemn idea of the revival of the Aryan culture, the glorification of the swastika, her patronage of Vedic learning, and the ardent championship of Indo-Germanic civilization are welcomed by the religious and sensible Hindus of India with a jubilant hope."
This racism and religious and cultural chauvinism brought the Sangh Parivar into conflict with other strands of Hinduism, especially those taught by Mahatma Gandhi. Golwalkar castigated Gandhi as being soft on Muslims, while Gandhi in turn called the RSS "a communal body with a totalitarian outlook." Hindu nationalists blamed Gandhi for the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947 and accused him of dismembering Mother India. The conflict did not stop at words: Gandhi's assassin was Nathuram Godse, a former RSS member and Savarkar associate.
The RSS is now a major paramilitary organization with millions of members. Its educational wing, the Vidya Bharati, has some twenty thousand educational institutes, with one hundred thousand teachers and two million students. The Vidya Bharati schools distribute booklets containing a map of India that encompasses not only Pakistan and Bangladesh but also the entire region of Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, and parts of Myanmar, all under the heading "Punya Bhoomi Bharat," the "Indian Holy Land." The RSS also has separate organizations for tribal peoples, intellectuals, teachers, slum dwellers, leprosy patients, cooperatives, consumers, newspapers, industrialists, Sikhs, ex-servicemen, overseas Indians, and an organization for religion and proselytization, as well as trade unions, student and economic organizations, and a women's chapter.
Other Sangh Parivar organizations include the Bajrang Dal and the Vishnu Hindu Parishad (VHP-World Hindu Council), which engage in propaganda, virulent hate campaigns, and sometimes violence against religious minorities. The VHP was formed in 1964 to unite Hindu groups and serve as the RSS's bridge to sympathetic religious leaders. It has sought to radicalize Hindus by claiming that Hindus are under threat from an "exploding" Muslim population and a spate of Christian conversions, and it organized the 1992 nationwide demonstrations that culminated in the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque by Hindu mobs.
In January 2003, the head of the RSS described the Jesuits in India as the "pope's soldiers" and alleged that they had taken an oath to use "violence and barbaric means to decimate all those who don't follow the Roman Catholic religion." Sangh Parivar groups have also been pressing for a ban on religious conversions from Hinduism, which they allege are being done by "force, fraud, and inducement." They accuse Christian missionaries (who comprise about one half of one percent of the Christians in India) of converting people by offering them money, medical help, and education. Because of this widespread Hindu extremist propaganda, it now appears that a majority of Hindus support a ban on Hindus changing their religion.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has since 1998 formed the national government of India at the head of a coalition of centrist parties, is tied to the RSS, VHP, and Bajrang Dal, and functions as the Sangh Parivar's political wing. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee publicly praises the RSS, attends its functions, and has feted the organization's leadership at his residence. Other senior BJP officials, such as Home Affairs Minister L. K. Advani, are RSS associates. At the national level the BJP advances the ideology of Hindutva through propaganda, the manipulation of cultural institutions, undercutting laws that protect religious minorities, and minimizing or excusing Hindu extremist violence. At the state level its functionaries have abetted and even participated in such violence.
The BJP appoints school officials who alter textbooks and curricula to emphasize Hinduism; they also require that Hindu texts be taught in all schools. Moreover, it has appointed Sangh Parivar adherents to key positions in autonomous bodies such as the Prasar Bharati, which controls the official media, the National Film Development Corporation, the Indian Council of Historical Research, and the National Book Trust.
BJP lawmakers have also attempted to restrict minority religious groups' international contacts and to reduce their rights to build places of worship. It works to pass anti-conversion laws and to alter the personal laws that govern marriages, adoptions, and inheritance. It practices legal discrimination against Dalits ("untouchables") who are Christian and Muslim, but not against those who are Hindu. With BJP support, laws have recently been adopted in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat states that restrict the ability of Hindus to change their religion, and proposals for national restrictions have been made. Pope John Paul II described these developments in June 2003 as "unjust" and said they prohibited "free exercise of the natural right to religious freedom."
The current legal status of religious conversion in India is ambiguous. In a 1977 judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that "converting" people was not a fundamental right, that conversions could potentially impinge on freedom of conscience, and that, if conversions disrupt community life, they could amount to "disturbing public order." The states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, and Arunachal Pradesh have a legal ban on "forced conversion." Officials of the National Commission for Minorities, a government body with the mandate to protect minorities, believe that such laws are unconstitutional; and despite many investigations into allegations, no "forced conversions" have ever been documented or proven.
While restrictions on conversion--or, more precisely, restrictions on the legal recognition that someone has in fact converted--affect all Indians, they are particularly onerous for Dalits. Because of their desperate status in Indian society, many lower-caste Hindus have considered converting in order to escape their religiously defined plight (most Christians in India are from Dalit background). In 1956, B. R. Ambedkar, a Dalit leader, declared that he had converted to Buddhism to escape Hinduism. Perhaps as many as one hundred thousand Dalits have followed his example. In 1981, about a thousand Dalits converted to Islam in Tamil Nadu. In August 2002, 250 Dalit youth from the same area converted to Christianity. Apart from their directly religious significance, such conversions erode the dominance of traditional Hinduism's higher castes, especially the Brahmins, and undercut the power of landowners, generally higher-caste, over their laborers, who are frequently lower-caste. The attempts to forbid religious conversion are also attempts to keep the underclass in its place.
The BJP policies on Hindutva and conversion coincide with increasingly violent attacks by Hindu militants on religious minorities. Attacks on Christians, especially in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa, have surged in recent years. India's Home Ministry (internal security) and its National Commission for Minorities officially list over a hundred religiously motivated attacks against Christians per year, but the real number is certainly higher, as Indian journalists estimate that only some ten percent of incidents are ever reported. These attacks include murders of missionaries and priests, sexual assault on nuns, ransacking of churches, convents, and other Christian institutions, desecration of cemeteries, and Bible burnings.
The other major target of Hindu extremists is the Muslim community, which is haunted by the fear of recurrent communal riots that have taken the lives of thousands of Muslims and Hindus since Indian independence. During the outbreak of violence in Gujarat in February 2002, many of the victims were burned alive or dismembered while police and BJP state government authorities either stood by or joined in. The mobs had with them lists of homes and businesses owned by Muslims, lists that they could have acquired only from government sources.
After the massacre, state BJP officials also impeded the investigation. In the high-profile "Best Bakery Case," a judge dismissed charges against twenty-one defendants on trial for setting fire to a Muslim-owned bakery and killing and injuring its owners because the main witness, a nineteen-year-old girl, stated that she could not identify any of the attackers. She later told the press that "she testified falsely after local Hindu politicians repeatedly threatened her family ... and after concluding that prosecutors, who made no effort to meet with her before the trial, were not serious about gaining convictions." On September 12, 2003, the Chief Justice of India's Supreme Court expressed his disgust with the situation by declaring publicly that he has "no faith left in the prosecution and the Gujarat government."
Following the violence, Gujarat's Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, a BJP member, called upon his supporters to "teach a lesson" to those who "believe in multiplying the population," referring to Muslims. Other Sangh Parivar officials were even more explicitly threatening. VHP International President Ashok Singhal described the Gujarat carnage as a "successful experiment" and warned that it would be repeated all over India. After the December 2002 BJP election victory in Gujarat, VHP General Secretary Pravin Togadia declared, "All Hindutva opponents will get the death sentence, and we will leave this to the people to carry out. The process of forming a Hindu rule in the country has begun with Gujarat, and VHP will take the Gujarat experiment to every nook and corner of the country."
To maintain the political coalition that enables it to rule at the national level, the BJP downplays its specifically religious goals and portrays itself as a moderate party. But it also allies with the Sangh Parivar to appeal to its base. In its 2004 recommendations, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom proposed that India be included on the State Department's official shortlist of the worst religious persecutors for its "egregious, systematic, and ongoing" violations of religious fights.
Since it is the world's largest democracy, good relations with India are important to the U.S. It is also a growing trading partner, a possible geopolitical counterweight to China, and a strong U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. But the growth of often-violent Hindu nationalism threatens India's tolerant traditions and pluralistic democracy. If religious extremism continues to grow, it will, as we have learned elsewhere, drag India's democracy, economy, and foreign policy down with it. In the face of such a threat, we cannot afford to be silent.
Paul Marshall is a Senior Fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom. Among his recent books are Islam at the Crossroads (2002); God and the Constitution: Christianity and American Politics (2002); and the Center's recent report, The Rise of Hindu Extremism.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/country/india/Hinduism%20and%20Terror.htm
Posted by: Timhur | Jan 17, 2006 9:13:42 PM
timhur sahib:
i am fully aware of the atrocities commited against minorities in india. that is why i am not extolling the secular virtues of india
i posted the article to belie the assertions of the author above, who was rapturously singing paeans to the secular nature of his beloved city
btw, you may have noticed by my last name, i am a kashmiri hindu. who was forced to abandon the land of his ancestors, thanks to the "boys" who crossed over the border into our valley and asked all "kafirs" to convert, join in the "jehad" or die. oh yes, they were kind enough to ask us to leave our women folk behind.
you can check up on that on the amnesty, human rights and freedom house websites.
p.s. ever wonder why the minority [hindu] population in pakistan has reduced so drastically since partition and
the muslim population in india grown so significantly?
Posted by: Subheer | Jan 18, 2006 12:07:52 AM
Wanchu bhai,
I take your comments and background but I will tell you of my background and make comments also.
I am one half Gujrati speaking myself and my grandparents escaped in 47 because Hindus starting burning our homes. My grandfathers brother and family didnt make it. They were slaughtered but they couldnt be buried. So I could have had a dada and a dadi and chacha and chachi and cousins and so on but I dont. After much pains and sacrifice we made a life in Karachi but were sad to leave homes and others behind.
But every year Muslims get killed in India. Sometimes it is a small number and sometimes it is in thousands. In 1989 in your Kashmir police fired on peaceful student march and then the problems in Kashmir began again. You will be knowing 2000 died in Bombay in the 1992 after the Babri masjid was destroyed. There was also Ahmedabad, Bhagalpur, Dada Hayat...
Then in 2002 the killing began in Gujrat again! 3000 died in Gujrat with the help of local goverment and police! Hindu mobs pulled down the pants of Muslim men and if they were not circumsised they were butchered with the religious forks. Gujrat is my home also. Maybe they killed more of my family members. I felt depressed for months.
But this is only Muslims. Sikhs were killed in the 1000s in the 80s even in Delhi. Poor Christians and even Christian priests are killed! Even Hindus! If you are from Kashmir and Brahmin then you don't care too much about the untouchable peoples but they are killed every year by landowners. Women are killed when their husbands die because of the practice of sati.
So you check the human rights reports but you already must be knowing it.
We in Pakistan dont pretend to be secular because Pakistan is mostly Muslim. Maybe you should stop pretending?
We are happy in Karachi and dont need anybody to tell us what we are thank you.
Posted by: Tihmur | Jan 18, 2006 2:33:26 AM
timhur sahib:
you are right on pertty much every thing. india has a long way to travel.
this said, allow me to revisit my grouse with the author's original paean to karachi's secular nature in your words:
"We in Pakistan dont pretend to be secular because Pakistan is mostly Muslim"
that is exactly what i was trying to convey - stop pretending.
Posted by: Subheer | Jan 18, 2006 10:52:13 AM
btw timhur sahib,
when you deem appropriate, do address the last query from my second to last post.
once again - ever wonder why the minority [hindu] population in pakistan has reduced so drastically since partition and the muslim population in india grown so significantly?
Posted by: Subheer | Jan 18, 2006 11:24:42 PM
Boys and girls,
Normally we would note in a gentlemanly way that we appreciate spirited discussion but in this case we don't care at all for this childish and often mean-spirited oneupmanship. Moreover, this business of posting entire articles as comments must stop.
Manifestly, Indians and Pakistanis are each other's "Other." It would seem Indians need to believe that Pakistan is a state comprised of bearded Muslim fundamentalists and Pakistanis need to believe that in India trident-toting Hindu fanatics run amok. Either notion reaffirms and may even define notions of our respective collective identity.
We all have our own myths, ladies and gentlemen but these myths, those of fundamentalist Pakistan or fundamentalist India, or secular Pakistan or secular India, need to be revisited, revised, reassessed.
We, however, are quite certain that we did not use the word 'secular' in our column. We hope that is clear. We have suggested that Karachi is a cosmopolitan metropolis, hardly a contentious claim. We are also quite certain that we did not summon events from our imagination. On the contrary, we have reported a few developments in contemporary Karachi, contemporary Pakistan. That St. Patrick’s Cathedral was lit garlanded by lights; that an earthquake took place in northern Pakistan; that the Hasbah bill was defeated in Peshawar; that Peshawar produced Sajid and Zeeshan; that there was Christmas programming on TV; that the Kara Film Festival (and the Indus Music awards) took place in December; that Nasra school middle schoolers debated relations Pakistan Israel relations; that Danesh Kaneria is a Hindu leg spinner (who incidentally comes from a wealthy Hindu family and is certainly not about to convert), are facts. That these facts may offend certain sensibilities is somewhat peculiar. But we do not care to quarrel with the quarrelsome.
On the other hand, suggesting a national or domestic sports team reflects national or local character is an opinion. This variety of assertion is not a particularly novel thought. Sports columnists in the New York Post often find meaning in the fall of the Knicks (after the departure of the brilliant, tired-eyed Van Gundy, Patrick Ewing the warrior, Starks, Mason and the Oak), a trope charting New York after the decline of the Great Tech Boom. Celebrated Indian writer Shashi Tharoor in his sports column for The Hindu (as well as in an op-ed in the LA Times) made much of the Muslim Gujrati Irfan Pathan in the wake of the wave of killings in Gujrat (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-tharoor16apr16,0,5369689.story?coll==la-news-comment-opinions and http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2004/05/09/stories/2004050900130300.htm). Tharoor may have needed to find meaning in Pathan after what transpired.
We too have found some meaning in our team. That the team comprises religious minded players and some hardcore party animals (arguably, the latter's heritage is older and richer than the former's) was not our point. We simply maintain that they all work together to come out on top. This, boys and girls, is again an opinion, not a fact (and as far opinions go, a fairly straightforward one). It may or may not cohere with certain sensibilities but coheres just fine with ours.
We thank those who found this edition of Critical Digressions worthy of praise: thank-you.
And we should probably sign off with the following colloquialism: peace.
Posted by: HMN | Jan 19, 2006 1:34:08 AM
Point/s taken, mostly.
Great blog, btw. Very enlightining.
Thanks!
Posted by: Subheer | Jan 20, 2006 12:05:33 PM
Wanchutiapa.
Posted by: Tihmur | Jan 22, 2006 9:54:32 AM
Great post once again. And, great comments by all.
Thank you so much for writing that though not all are
secular, secularism lives in Pakistan. A democratic
Pakistan has so much potential. What is it that she does
not have?
Subheer Bhaijan, If you take off your high glasses and
read what is written here just as it is, you'll
see 'ke ham aap se dur nahin hai'. Of course, secularism
is not as strong as in India, but allow us to celebrate
the little bit that we got. And do continue to share
your opinions with us.
Thank you Hussain, do not stop writing. And, please feel
free to write on the negaive aspects as well.
Posted by: Dee | Jan 30, 2006 8:48:48 PM
Why dont we all ask the Pakistan Gov. as to why can they not stop the karachi dakayti (Armed robbery) that takes pleace almost daily in peoples homes. When the government of pakistan cannot give security to pakistanis in their homes in karachi, how can they boast of being a government. The police, the officials all corrupt. Ask people living in karachi, and hear what they say!
Posted by: Sarwar | Mar 19, 2006 8:21:09 PM
It is not anything intolerant of a cricketer decides to become Muslim...there is no 'getting to' people here in order to convert them to Islam. Before Mohammad Yousuf converted, there was always a little story in the newspaper around Christmas that said that the captain of the team has taken Yousaf Youhana to dinner to celebrate Christmas with him. If there was any 'getting to', wouldn't his Christmas have been ignored.
I have several problems with this article and its comments
(a) there is no poltical efficency as such in Karachi. The MQM are dead bent on posing for posters around election time; there, the efficency ends. It rains, the roads develop potholes, and not one bleeping hole is fixed. Not one. The private organizations such as Edhi helped, but that's about all.
(b) the people of Pakistan helped much more than America...our donations alone were enough to give the victims the material things they had lost four times over. The President's Fund recieved most of it...what they have used it in is still not under investigation.
(b) the "donations" by America still have to be paid back. We have to pay back their generosity...is that generosity?
(c)America is now bombing any part of Pakistan they wish to. Lovely.
I cannot speak to everyone, but if anyone wants a summary of my comments...America is a bloody terrorist!
Posted by: Aamna | May 21, 2008 8:35:43 AM
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