[sacw] SACW | 4 Sept. 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 4 September 2002

__________________________

#1. Pakistan: between the 'Arabist shift' and Indo-Persian culture 
(Suroosh Irfani)
#2. The underlying assumptions matter (M. B. Naqvi)
#3. Screening of a documentary on the carnage in Gujarat, (5 Sept., 
in New York)
#4. There's a soldier in the backyard (Amitava Kumar)
#5. Journeys of a Secular Muslim (Chitra Padmanabhan)
#6. 'We'll repeat our Gujarat experiment' says the Blood curdling 
president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad
#7. Gujarat Muslims not being allowed back into tribal villages (Rajiv Pathak)

__________________________

#1.

The Daily Times (Lahore)
September 03, 2002

Pakistan: between the 'Arabist shift' and Indo-Persian culture

Suroosh Irfani
A long-term solution of Pakistan's religiously inspired violence 
masquerading as an Arabist shift is contingent upon a radical 
improvement in Indo-Pakistan relations

At the start of a new millennium, India and Pakistan signify a 
virtual inversion of what their founding fathers Mohandas Gandhi and 
Mohammad Ali Jinnah stood for. In India, Gandhi's legacy of 
non-violence and Muslim inclusivism has been largely displaced by 
communal violence and the rise of the very kind of Hindu fanaticism 
that gunned him down in 1948. In Pakistan, Jinnah's vision of a 
democratic Pakistan, where religion was to be a personal matter that 
had "nothing to do with the business of the state", has been eclipsed 
by frequent military takeovers and a rising spiral of religious 
violence unprecedented in the subcontinent's history.
Indeed, in many ways both India and Pakistan are like mirrors to each 
other, where an internal critique of one virtually amounts to that of 
the other. This is poignantly reflected in Bharatiya Janata Party 
(BJP) leader Jagmohans's critique of an India "that had gone astray 
almost in every sphere of life" under "unprincipled and 
irresponsible" political parties and leadership because its 
"foundational planks are missing".
Whatever Jagmohan's notion of the missing planks in Indian polity, 
Pakistan's loss of soul is partly rooted in the eclipse of an 
Indo-Persian cultural matrix that historically constituted a 
'foundational plank' of the subcontinent's Muslim identity. The icons 
of the Pakistan movement like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Allama Iqbal and 
Jinnah were as much a product of this cultural matrix as the 
proponents of Hindu-Muslim unity, like maulanas Mahmoodul Hassan of 
Deoband and Ubaidullah Sindhi. Moreover, the eclipse of the 
Indo-Persian matrix since the subcontinent's partition in 1947 has 
been marked by the ascent of an 'Arabist shift'- the tendency to view 
the present in terms of an imagined Arab past with the Arab as the 
only 'real/pure' Muslim, and then using this trope of purity for 
exorcising an 'unIslamic' present. Consequently, what has been lost 
in the Arabist shift is the eclecticism and intellectuality which was 
the basis of a creative South Asian Muslim identity. This has led to 
a hardening in the understanding of Islam as a result of imagining 
Pakistanis in Arabist terms.
However, the 'Arabist shift' touched new heights through a 
convergence of General Ziaul Haq's politically motivated Islamisation 
of Pakistani state and society and the US-Saudi sponsored jihad in 
Afghanistan on the one hand, and the fall out of the Iranian 
revolution, the Kashmir dispute, and uneven development on the other. 
Moreover, the 'Arabist shift' is also underscored by the fascination 
of Pakistan's religio-political groups with Talibanic Islam - 
generally seen as a slide towards a tribal, anti-intellectual and 
misogynist view of Islam promoted by a narrow interpretation of the 
Koran. And although the Taliban are not Arab, Talibanic Islam is a 
vigorous manifestation of the 'Arabist shift', of which Osama bin 
Laden has become the icon par excellence in Pakistan today.
Small wonder that both the extremist and the mainstream 
religio-political groups in Pakistan look up to bin Laden as a 'hero 
of Islam'. This is borne out by the leaders of the religious parties 
alliance, the Muttahida Majlis e Amal (MMA) while reacting to the 
government ads in the national print media in June this year 
portraying bin Laden and his Al Qaeda associates as 'religious 
terrorists'. As the information secretary of Jamiate Ulame Islam 
reportedly claimed, Osama was "a hero to the Islamic world and the 
Musharraf government would not get any sympathy by branding him a 
religious terrorist". On his part, Jamaate Islami leader Qazi Hussain 
Ahmed termed the Osama ad as part of an international conspiracy in 
which "Pakistan's government had sided with the Zionists agenda". He 
went on to argue that "bracketing of Islamists with terrorists (was) 
a Zionist conspiracy because Islam is fast spreading in Europe and 
America". Such lionization of Osama is even more vigorous in the 
tribal areas: the spot where the four Al Qaeda terrorists fell during 
a recent shoot out with government forces has been reportedly turned 
into a shrine by the locals.
Inevitably, such glorification of Al Qaeda terrorists by a Talibanic 
Pakistan has a corollary among the 'Vedic Taliban' in India, where 
Hindu policemen who participated in the recent massacre of Muslims in 
Gujarat were glorified as heroes. Clearly then, such a melding of 
subjectivities of religious violence across Pakistan and India 
suggests that the radicalisation of the 'Arabist shift' in Pakistan 
and of 'Vedic Taliban' in India are two sides of the same cultural 
problematic: the eclipse of the subcontinent's eclecticism of which 
the Indo-Persian matrix (with its marvels like the Taj Mahal and 
Shalimar gardens) was a prime expression.
To be sure, the founding moment for the Indo-Persian cultural 
eclecticism may be located in the 11th century when Lahore emerged as 
a major centre of Persianate culture. Persian became the 
administrative language of successive Indian rulers even as it 
sparked a cultural efflorescence through a synthesis of Sufism with a 
multicultural Indian society.
As for the Arabist shift, it may be traced to the onset of the Indian 
Wahhabi movement in the early nineteenth century, followed by the 
founding of the Wahhabi inspired seminary at the city of Deoband in 
1867. However, unlike their more rigid Arab counterparts, leaders of 
the Indian Wahhabi movement like Syed Ahmed Barelvi (d.1831) were 
reformists representing a degree of spiritual eclecticism of the 
Indo-Persian cultural matrix.
This is borne out by Barelvi's accommodation with the four main sufi 
orders in India (Qadiriyya, Chishtiyya, Naqshbandiyya, 
Naqshbandi-Mujjadidiyya) and his frequent references in his maktubat 
(Letters) to Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273), the icon of Persianate 
mysticism. Such an intra-Islamic eclecticism is at a far remove from 
the worldview of the sectarian Wahhabi-Deobandi groups operating in 
Pakistan today, and the icons of the terrorist outfits like Sheikh 
Omer who masterminded the kidnapping of American journalist Daniel 
Pearl, and Riaz Basra, the self-confessed serial killer of Shias who 
founded the death squad Lashkare Jhangvi, now operating as Al Qaeda's 
sidekick. (For Barelvi's Sufism see, "Sufism in the First Indian 
Wahhabi Manifesto: Siratu' l mustaqim by Ismail Shahid and Abdul 
Hayy", in The Making of Indo-Persian Culture. Muzahher Alam et al, 
Manohar, New Delhi, 2000).
To be sure, President Pervez Musharraf's aligning of Pakistan with 
the US in the war against terrorism has both undercut and radicalised 
the 'Arabist shift'. This is reflected by a defiant flaunting of bin 
Laden as a primordial Arab-Islamic hero by the religio-political 
groups and their opposition to General Musharraf who is regarded as 
an American stooge. A case in point being the full page ads that 
appeared in the Karachi daily Ummate Muslima praising bin Laden as a 
"holy warrior and a lion of God whom the 1.4 million American army 
has failed to capture and subdue". The ads appeared on July 2 and 4 
in retaliation to the government's ads of 30 June depicting bin Laden 
as a terrorist, but the government looked the other way in what might 
be an example of our complicit culture. Another disturbing example of 
such complicity being the government's reported failure in co-opting 
the MMA, even as the MMA reportedly enjoys the support of banned 
extremist and terrorist groups in the forthcoming October elections.
In this sense, religious extremism in Pakistan is a political 
expression of the Arabist shift, and it stands to subvert Pakistan's 
quest for joining the mainstream global economy much like Jihad 
International subverted Afghanistan during the 1980s, when 
Afghanistan was attempting to modernise with Soviet support.
However, even as Pakistan and the US wage their war against 
terrorism, it is important to remember that in a globalising moment 
where the local and the global are increasingly intertwined in an 
interdependent world, forms of religious violence cannot be wished 
away in isolation from the historical and political contexts giving 
rise to them: be it in the post Soviet/ post- Taliban Afghanistan, 
Palestine under Israeli occupation, or Kashmiri aspiration for self 
determination.
A long-term solution of Pakistan's religiously inspired violence 
masquerading as an Arabist shift, therefore, is contingent upon a 
radical improvement in Indo-Pakistan relations. This will make it 
possible for Pakistan to focus more on economic development and also 
to evolve a more inclusive Muslim identity by reclaiming its 
Indo-Persian culture. Indeed, despite the opportunistic use of 
politically inspired religious violence in the country, a pacifist 
Indo-Persian matrix remains alive and kicking at the grassroots 
level. For example, unlike Pakistan's Afghan-Arabs in the tribal 
areas who pay homage to Al Qaeda terrorists, the villagers near 
Muzaffarabad stood in the way of the terrorists who were fleeing 
after attacking the Christian missionary school in Murree, and this 
led the terrorists to blow themselves up following the example of 
their Arab role-models. Even so, given the tension and mistrust 
between India and Pakistan, it is imperative that while the two 
countries address the Kashmir question, they should also evolve 
multilateral cooperative mechanisms with the United States and the UN 
on the issues of education, development and culture for promoting and 
preserving peace and security over the long haul.
Suroosh Irfani is co-director of the Graduate Program in 
Communication and Cultural Studies at National College of Arts, Lahore

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#2.

[September 3, 2002]
The underlying assumptions matter

By M. B. Naqvi

Dire things are frequently said about the stability and survival of 
the Pakistan state. Dark scenarios are written and social 
contradictions analysed. Hence the foreboding. But all this lie 
certain assumptions. The factors leading to a crash remain only 
worse. That crash or collapse continues to hover neither happening 
nor going aware.

The underlying assumptions concern the people of Pakistan. Analysts 
think that one dark day the people would rise and will smash all that 
nonsense. Doom saying therefore follows. It began in earnest in 1970s 
after the country was dismembered, leaving deep scars on Pakistan's 
security establishment though not the people. In the decades since 
Bangladesh's emergence all the other polarisations if have in fact 
worsened with the conditions. But no dire thing has taken place. It 
is however necessary to examine the state of various polarisations 
that describe Pakistan politics.

First, let's look at the people with rich diversities of ethnicity 
and politics while the second big force is what may be called 
'strategic enclave' or the establishment as comprising the collection 
of retired civil and military officers, media persons dealing with 
defence matters, rightwing politicians and scientists in nuclear and 
defence establishments. What binds them together is common faith in a 
militaristic view to national security, 'a realistic foreign policy 
and the value of the nuclear weapons. It includes the top serving 
military officials to whom modesty comes rarely. It has been termed 
the establishment, the Permanent Government or Invisible Government.

There is supposedly a desperate battle between these two forces. It 
is the main assumptions, though supported by three major protest 
agitations' history of 1968-69, 1977 and 1983. In each case there was 
an apparent clash of interest between the mainstream rightwing 
political parties and the 'strategic enclave'. As movements go, they 
were large and serious affairs between democracy and the military 
dictators with some elected politicians condemned as Fascists. But 
looked at closely, in terms of social origins and mores, there was 
not much to distinguish either from the other. Both are supposedly 
west-oriented, friends of the US with a common dependency syndrome 
and follow an India policy that is at bottom anti-Hindu.

At different times these stalwarts of democracy have participated in 
regimes that played second fiddle to the strategic enclave. Today 
most of them are satellites of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. No use denying 
pro-democracy sentiment in the tiny liberal-left minority that 
actually leads public opinion. But it does not carry much weight and 
the high and mighty can ignore it with some understandable contempt 
for its inconsistencies, compromises and failures. Both major forces 
exist, one happily ruling, and intent on ruling indefinitely, while 
the other remains unhappy, often muttering threats of agitations.

The tiny liberal minority claims that common men and women have 
sturdy commonsense, are no fools. Their behaviour however does not 
quite conform to the expectations. True, they have not learnt the 
three Rs, are mostly poor and often in ill health. But their earthy 
good sense is accepted. But there is scope for doubt about the 
people. Most of them comprise the 'silent majority'. The only 
recognisable qualities they have are two: they can be pushed around 
and oppressed at will and second it remains mostly silent. One 
actually believes in that liberal view --- but over the long haul. 
For, their outlook on life, the automatic acceptance of ancient 
traditions and the attitudes result in frequent tribal clashes, a 
sense of honour that requires killing ones own daughter or sister or 
wife on the mere suspicion of an adulterous affair with someone; they 
require no proofs. In a recent such case, where one higher and other 
a lower caste were involved, area's social notables mediated a 
settlement in which the erring lower caste was required to pay a lot 
of money and a certain number of women to the supposedly aggrieved 
higher caste. Each year's Karo Kari murders run in thousands and 
inter-caste shooting sprees frequently hit the headlines. Socially 
the ambiance in villages is still one of fourteenth century. This 
fact has somehow to inform political thinkers and analysts who bank 
of people's sturdy goodness.

Insofar as the Army high command, the narrowest elite actually 
strutting the stage, like Bourbons, have neither learnt anything nor 
unlearnt the rubbish that comprises their ideas. They know military 
concepts and deal in jargon; can discuss strategic matters with 
Pentagon officials; a few of them actually understand what they are 
talking about. But for the rest, they too live in the 14th or 15th 
century, imagining themselves to be a Mughal king's mansabdars when 
modesty overcomes them. Otherwise they mistake themselves to be 
absolutist kings. Today's military ruler wants to be one in the early 
part of the 21st century. Could the two forces ---people's ignorance 
and the strategic enclave's designs --- be complementing each other? 
Political thinkers assumption about the polarisation apparently does 
not prevent some of them vulgarly profiting from their gift of the 
gab.

The third great force is the large and variegated breed of 
Islamicists. There are supposedly three all Pakistan religious 
parties: Jamaate Islami, Jamiate Ulema Islam and Jamiate Ulema 
Pakistan each with splinters except JI. Various extremist groups have 
sprung from wombs. The Americans, at war with Islamic Terror, give 
pride of place to al-Qaeda; they think it is now Pakistan based 
subsumes many other Jihadi and Islamic extremist groups. These, when 
they turn to Indian controlled Kashmir, become Jihadis. But when they 
are content to stay home they are sectarian terrorists, killers of 
the minorities, protectors of the greatness of Prophet Muhammad and 
various other emotional causes. Pakistan authorities apparently do 
not share the American view; they find no evidence of al-Qaeda being 
the mastermind here. No one knows for sure.

There has been an incestuous relationship between Islamic parties, 
the government and of course the extremist groups --- more than a 
dozen at the last count. The fact is that the military regime has 
performed two U-turns: first on Taliban and the second on the Jihad 
in Kashmir by promising to stop it permanently. It does seem that 
both the Americans --- not necessarily State Department --- and the 
Indians are not convinced that that umbilical chord has been cut. 
Western media has accused the Musharraf government of being soft on 
some and harsh on other groups. The Americans seem to be accusing 
that Islamabad is scapegoating some, while letting the bulk of them 
off the hook. Insofar as the Kashmir's Jihadis are concerned, it is 
difficult to believe that Musharraf government can afford to cheat on 
its promises to the American government. Even the Indian government 
concedes that the continuing incidents might not enjoy Musharraf's 
active support. Several Jihadi outfits are big and powerful enough to 
continue in their own momentum.

Emerging point is that over the years since Gen. Ziaul Haq began his 
Islamisation of Pakistan Army, Islamic fanatics cannot be 
wholeheartedly fought and eliminated. If the regime delinks itself 
politically and makes an effort to contain them, it should be enough, 
considering various ground realities. Insofar as the main religious 
parties are concerned, they have a dubious relationship with the 
government. Each has had a relationship with the army that may not 
stand scrutiny. And yet they are respected political forces who 
sometimes win a few seats in elections. Two contradictory things are 
simultaneously true: the religious parties with or without support of 
their progeny --- the extremist groups --- can not defeat or 
transform the Pakistan state. And yet they are a force to contend 
with --- largely by default. The reason for that is the original 
failure of the nerve by the socalled west-oriented social elites that 
led various parties; they have never persuaded the people that would 
overshadow the religious parties. The best they could do was what 
Nawaz Sharif's speeches conveyed. That conded more than they gained. 
The liberal left fringe was again neither here nor there.

The fourth force is supposedly the most serious threat to Pakistan's 
unity and integrity. They are regional nationalists that abound in 
Sindh, Baluchistan and the Frontier. The army in effect concedes that 
Sindh is its soft underbelly. Its tiny middle class and 
intelligentsia are loudly anti-Punjabi in their politics and beliefs. 
Their organisations are far too many --- a dozen or more last year. 
They have non-religious slogans that evoke sympathy from even the 
silent majority. And yet none of their organisations is worth a 
tinker's cuss. This is true for both Sindh and Baluchistan. Sindhi 
nationalism's evolution seems most developed. But somehow the Sindhi 
nationalist parties have never won a single seat in any election. 
Baluchistan is different. It is still a tribal society properly 
socalled where the Sardars can, in the rare event of their uniting, a 
political force can be created. On current indications young Sardar 
Mengal-led coalition if it enlists the support of Jamhoori Watan 
Party of Nawab Akbar Bugti and the Pushtoon Nationalist Party of 
Mahmood Achakzai (son of Abdus Samad Achakzai) might emerge as big 
force.

But in Sindh, every uneducated ardent nationalist and usually 
unemployed Sindhi, while loudly hating the Army and the Punjabis, 
does not vote for any nationalist party. He votes for Benazir Bhutto 
who claims to be the last hope for the Pakistan federation. The issue 
has virtually died down in the Frontier, though the rhetoric remains. 
The Frontier is far too integrated economically with Pakistan and 
demographically with Afghanistan; Pushtoon nationalists' old fire has 
more or less dissipated. The tentacles that the narcotics trade, the 
Afghan Mujahideen and Pakistan's intelligence agencies have spread so 
much poison that the old Pushtoon nationalism has become an uncertain 
light. The unexplained wealth of the social elites in all these 
provinces is robbing them of any spirit that makes a nationalist 
fight.

The commando general that Pervez Musharraf has laid the groundwork 
for a long rule. He has tailored the Constitution around his 
personality; by most accounts, he is determined to win the Oct 
elections; he cannot afford to encounter a Parliament that either 
refuses to accept him as President for the next five years or his 
Constitution. He is sure to do what it takes to win an election; the 
entire administration has been oriented to do just that. Money is 
also apparently no problem. While it is to be conceded that no one 
can be sure of an election, the chances of Musharraf-loving 
politicians in very good numbers are more than even. One's personal 
hunch is that no matter who wins in the polls, the government that 
that Parliament throws up, will accept Musharraf and work his 
Constitution. But that prognostication does not exclude either a 
raging and tearing popular mass movements against the regime or 
worse. As a minimum Pakistan may have leaped backwards into the 1990s.

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#3.

Screening of a documentary on the carnage in Gujarat, India "Hey 
Ram! Genocide in the land of Gandhi" by Gopal Menon

Date: Thursday, September 5, 2002 Time: 7.00 pm Venue: Life 
sciences 038, Stony Brook University [New York]

"Hey Ram: Genocide in the land of Gandhi" documents first-person 
accounts of personal loss during recent riots targeted on Muslims 
in the state of Gujarat. This 25 minute documentary reveals the 
scale of terror that resulted in widespread loss of life and 
property.

Ram Rahman, photographer and activist will provide a brief overview 
of ten years of cultural resistance and introduce the film. Ram is 
closely associated with the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, SAHMAT, 
Delhi. A graduate of MIT and Yale Universities, Ram has exhibited 
his photographs in many places around the world, including the 
Staller Center at Stony Brook.

Sponsored by the Stony Brook Film Society.

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#4.

Indian Express
Tuesday, September 03, 2002

There's a soldier in the backyard
Notes from the Valley: I finally found the hotel I was looking for-it 
had been converted into a BSF bunker
Amitava Kumar

Srinagar is dusty, the dust choking the busy streets and clinging to 
the dark wooden houses covered with corrugated iron. There is a 
soldier with a rifle at every few paces, his head under a helmet and 
a bullet-proof vest on his chest. It is my last morning there. I am 
looking for Hotel Leeward where V S Naipaul had stayed for four 
months in 1962. Three decades later Naipaul had written that the time 
and the place ''remained a glow, a memory of a season when everything 
had gone well.'' As I catch sight of the hotel, I experience it as a 
discovery: the white building with blue trimmings on the edge of the 
water. The shikara I am sitting in passes a few shops and an STD 
booth on the lake, and then, proceeding along a waterway, draws close 
to the hotel's concrete steps. A dragonfly whirrs above the lowest 
step, the morning sun lighting its wings. But I am not allowed to 
step off the boat. A soldier with a sten gun waves me away. He tells 
me that the hotel is not open to outsiders. The Border Security Force 
uses it now as a bunker.

My visit to Srinagar ends with what it had started: the image of the 
dust, the rust, and the soldier with his rifle. You can turn away 
from the street and, even in more unlikely places, run into the armed 
forces.

The partially burnt-down structure of the Government Hospital for 
Psychiatric Diseases is set away from the street. The fort that Akbar 
built can be seen atop the hill nearby, the military bunker there 
sharply outlined against the blue. In the corridor, men in grimy 
white uniforms striped with blue squat on the floor, rocking their 
bodies against the wall. Dr Sadaqat Rahman, who is the only clinical 
psychologist in Srinagar, is making her rounds. She has an easy, 
affectionate manner toward her patients, many of whom are gathered at 
the windows of the wards in which they are locked. They shout out 
appeals in Kashmiri. They all want to go back home.

Till only a few years ago, there were about 8 to 10 patients visiting 
the hospital each day. These days the hospital treats anywhere from 
100 to 150 patients daily. Dr Rahman is reluctant to relate the 
increased problems to the violence of the valley. According to her, 
the malady is worldwide. She tells me that by the year 2008 there 
will only be psychiatry, no medicine.

Outside the doctor's wards is parked an ambulance with armed men in 
it. They are soldiers from the BSF. When they go in to see the 
doctor, these patients carry their rifles with them. The doctor 
explains that the soldiers do not trust even the doctors. Four 
soldiers wait in the truck, talking only among themselves. They have 
come to the hospital because they suffer from the effects of trauma. 
Many Kashmiris complain of the aggression of the armed forces; in the 
hospital, it is clear that violence does not spare the perpetrator 
either. The local papers that day have carried reports of a BSF 
commander being shot dead by an Army soldier in Kupwara.

In the BSF truck, a soldier who is from a village near Allahabad-one 
of the first things he tells me is that he is a Brahmin, and his name 
is Pandey-asks if I had seen the graffiti on a wall outside saying 
''Indian Forces Go Back.'' It is only when I say yes that he begins 
to talk about deep-seated suspicion and stress and depression. He 
feels okay when he is in his village, the man tells me, but feels 
disoriented outside. It strikes me that for people like Pandey the 
move from the village to the places outside was also an entry into 
the ideology of nationalism. Without the idea of the nation, a person 
like Pandey is lost.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a soldier with a rifle at every few paces, his head under a 
helmet, a bullet-proof vest on his chest. My visit to Srinagar ends 
with what it had started: the image of dust choking the streets and 
clinging to the wooden houses, the soldier with his rifle. You can 
turn away from the street and, even in unlikely places, run into the 
armed forces
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The militant from across the border who carries the idea of the 
Islamic nation like a gun is a figure that the soldier recognizes. 
Oddly enough, it is the armed militant who confirms for the soldier 
everything he believes in. But, what the soldier finds more 
disturbing, and even incomprehensible, is the ordinary Kashmiri who, 
unarmed, vulnerable, and in no way committed to Pakistan, will still 
not grant him the gift of inviolable nationhood.

In Srinagar, a housewife, a driver, a tailor, and an old poet sitting 
in front of his lovely pomegranate trees, all talk of their desire 
for an independent Kashmir that is at peace. In Delhi, in Nagpur, or 
in Patna, such talk is met with rage. As Indians we repeat what we 
have learned in school: Kashmir is a part of our identity as a 
nation. The Pakistanis, I am prepared to bet, have the same issues. 
''The land under Indian occupation has to be freed from the 
oppression of the kafirs''. To the ordinary Kashmiri, their homeland 
appears to be a battlefield for forces that are alien and distant.

Of course, there is a sad way in which the Indian soldier in Kashmir 
is no longer distant. The anonymous, painted sign on the road, asking 
the forces to go back, signifies for the soldier a loss of the self. 
In the resulting incomprehension, nationalism survives only as a 
neurosis. The only way out of this neurosis is for the soldier to 
identify each Kashmiri as a potential Pakistani. This act, full of 
the violence of negation, fills him with despair.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The militant from across the border who carries the idea of the 
Islamic nation like a gun is a figure that the soldier recognizes. 
It's the armed militant who confirms for the soldier everything he 
believes in. But what the soldier finds more disturbing, and even 
incomprehensible, is the ordinary Kashmiri who is unarmed, in no way 
committed to Pakistan, but will still not grant him the gift of 
inviolable nationhood
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And the Kashmiris? How do they suffer? In a room bare except for a 
carpet and plain green sofas arranged against the wall, Hurriyat's 
Abdul Gani Bhat tells me that he is stopped by a soldier on the 
street and asked to show his card. ''A man from Kerala has to 
verify,'' Bhat says, ''that I am a Kashmiri on the soil of Kashmir. 
This is humiliation. At its worst.''

The sun slants into the room, lighting Bhat's head from behind. He 
has a thin, lined face. Before joining politics, Bhat was a professor 
of Persian. His language is vivid and metaphorical. Gesturing with 
his hands, he proclaims, ''A soldier sits on each Kashmiri's head, 
minus children, and occasionally women and the old. The LoC exists in 
every room, in every office, in every street, at all levels.'' I 
think of what I had seen earlier in the day. The sign outside an Army 
bunker with its exhausting demand: 'Please Prove Your Identity.'

A cup of Kashmiri tea is brought for me. The Hurriyat Chairman warms 
to his theme. He says that the government in Kashmir exists only in 
bunkers. He says: ''Soldiers rule. Elections are irrelevant. 
Development is a mirage. We are fighting a war of survival.''

This could be dismissed as political rhetoric. But what Bhat says is 
echoed by common Kashmiris who do not want to be cheated of real 
change by politicians exchanging election slogans. Kashmiris will 
once again be asked to stuff their dreams into ballot boxes. This 
will be another occasion lost for genuine dialogue.

Parveena Ahangar is the mother of five children: one of them, Javed, 
has been missing since the night of 18 August, 1990 when the soldiers 
picked him up. They were probably looking for his neighbour, also 
called Javed, who was said to be a militant. Parveena's son Javed had 
a bad stammer and when he was disturbed and could not speak he would 
strike his foot against the ground. How would he have fared during 
interrogation?

Javed's mother says that she dreams of him each day. Parveena wants 
her son back, and she does not see the point in the elections. In 
broken Urdu, she says, Mera dil jalaa hua hai. Kahan jayega hum vote 
daalne?

(Amitava Kumar is the author of the recently released Bombay-London-New York)

______

#5.

The Times of India
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 04, 2002
LEADER ARTICLE
Journeys of a Secular Muslim
[ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 04, 2002 12:00:09 AM ]
Chitra Padmanabhan
It is a routine that Jowherbhai, a resident of Ahmedabad, has 
perfected in the last couple of months. In city after city of 
ruptured souls and impaled minds, in Gujarat, he has addressed 
countless public meetings of Muslims to get across a message that 
seems like a savage upper cut at first but soon transforms into a 
compassionate ray of hope. The message is simple: The moral fight for 
justice must go on. But it is also the moment of reckoning to rescue 
the self from the mire of ignorance.

As founder of SPRAT (Society for the Promotion of Rational Thinking), 
48-year-old M H Jowher is showing a giant mirror to his community in 
the hope that it will trigger a process of introspection. This 
soft-spoken, gentle orator uses the simplest of 'weapons' to put his 
point across. First comes a volley of facts titled 'Our Balance 
Sheet'. Asking 'What do we give to society, to ourselves?' he 
enumerates the number of schools, colleges, public hospitals, sports 
clubs and theatres run by Muslims in Muslim areas. The revelation is 
not very heartening. Next he elaborates on 'What we take from 
society,' or the services received by Muslims at public institutions.
Then Jowher quizzes the crowd about the inventors of the comforts 
that have merged seamlessly with our lives, in effect, to become our 
lives: telephone, refrigerator, television, computer... "Do you see 
noteworthy presence of Muslims in the last 200-odd years of 
invention? No. Contrast this with the earlier period when Muslims led 
in the arts and sciences," he hammers.
That Jowher should ask this question is a cruel personal irony. Until 
recently, as a successful IT entrepreneur who, in a philanthropic 
mode, ran Internet user groups (mainly Hindu, if you must know), as a 
visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad, and as a banker par excellence, he 
had touched countless lives in the mainstream (mainly Hindu, of 
course). A proud 'mainstream Indian' who had exorcised all religious 
markers, a passionate rationalist with nothing but scorn for the 
fundamentalist elements, and a tax-paying citizen who eschewed greasy 
shortcuts - he was surely the kind of Indian our freedom fighters 
must have died for.
During riots, as in 1992-93, Jowher and his family would shift to a 
safer place. After the storm abated he would return home to the 
mainstream locality that he stubbornly refused to leave for the 
safety of a Muslim ghetto. February 28, 2002: Coming within a whisker 
of death, seeing his office complex burn and wonder if his life's 
work was finished, being escorted under armed guard to safety and, 
finally, contemplating a permanent shift to a locality with more 
Muslims, Jowherbhai saw his Indianness being crushed. Most of 
Jowher's countless Gujarati Hindu friends are yet to call him, many 
suspect this Indian has become a 'Muslim'. He understands that they 
are afraid; that is natural. Except, his heart aches; it hasn't 
stopped aching since then. The question, "Who gave, who took," has 
become a cruel taunt.
In April, Jowher came to Delhi to meet NGOs working for relief in 
Gujarat; the silence in Ahmedabad was so deafening. With slender 
frame shaking like a leaf in a storm and scorching brine finally 
escaping his eyes, he asked a group that had turned to stone, "Who 
gave them the right to take away my Indianness - the dignity with 
which I walked the streets of Ahmedabad? The Latha Aunty in whose lap 
I passed my childhood, will I be able to call her mother again?"
But for now there are more important tasks such as providing means 
for victims to move on. Every moment of Jowher's life is weighed down 
by details of loss and annihilation: Reams on children who have lost 
either parent and been pulled out of school, assessments of damage to 
life and homes, reports on the ridiculous compensation amounts given 
and of livelihoods provided. Just above Jowherbhai's table hangs a 
shell-green bangle - a small girl's - framed in stark black against a 
white background. "They were lying in the hundreds at Naroda Patiya, 
some broken, some intact" he explains. This one's a perfect circle.
Close by are two clocks recovered from the debris of death, one 
melted to nothingness by heat, the other distorted into humps and 
caverns. They tell Jowher that time is running out. That is when he 
is galvanised into telling Muslims at public meetings to introspect. 
That is when he exhorts Muslim students with dreams in their eyes to 
work a 110 per cent - the extra 10 per cent to tackle communalism. 
Relief alone is not enough, there has to be a transformation in lives 
as well.

The orthodox Muslims look at such efforts with obvious contempt; 
reform is a word alien to their understanding. The Hindus are 
disinterested because it does not seem to touch them directly. He is 
a Muslim and since he is working for Muslims that doubly proves he is 
nothing more than a Muslim. Impeccable logic to trap the countless 
more Jowhers in India.

______

#6.

Indian Express
Wednesday, September 04, 2002
'We'll repeat our Gujarat experiment'
Express News Service
Amritsar, September 3: Vishwa Hindu Parishad international working 
president Ashok Singhal today termed Gujarat as a ''successful 
experiment''-and warned that it would be repeated all over India. 
[...].
http://www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=8831

____

#7.

Daily Times (Lahore)
September 03, 2002

Gujarat Muslims not being allowed back into tribal villages

By Rajiv Pathak
They fled their homes in tribal-dominated villages to escape death 
when Gujarat was in the grip of communal frenzy. Hundreds of such 
Muslims who found refuge in camps for the violence-displaced have 
been rendered homeless again as the temporary shelters have wound up. 
And they are not being allowed back to their own villages.
This town in Vadodara district alone has about 350 displaced Muslims 
from 30 villages, where they lived in modest homes and mostly ran 
small businesses.
Says Manwar Kureshi of Hamirpura village: "I fled on March 12 as the 
tribals attacked us. I have still not been able to move back home. We 
were five Muslim families in the village."
Farid Bhatti, a resident of Bordha village in Vadodara district, 
says: "Most villagers are not willing to allow us back. And my wife, 
who ran for 13 km through the hills to reach Chhota Udepur, is 
refusing to go back. She is unable to forget the trauma she had to go 
through when the people who were so close to the family attacked us 
on March 3." Rajesh Mishra, a social activist with Action Research in 
Community Health and Development, says there are around 70 such 
Muslim families from 30 villages in Vadodara district alone. Now that 
relief camps have been closed down, they have no place to go and no 
means of earning a living.
"The state government has given them a little money and now thinks 
its job is done. We are trying to find some solution for them, but 
unless the administration helps, the efforts would yield nothing," 
says Mishra. Trouble began in these villages in the first week of 
March, when sectarian violence peaked in the aftermath of the 
February 27 torching of train passengers in Godhra, most of them 
activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
The violence, which claimed nearly 1,000 lives, ripped through the 
cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara. It also spread to several 
tribal-dominated villages.
About 15 percent of Gujarat's 50.5 million people are tribals, 
concentrated largely in the Vadodara, Sabarkantha, Dangs, Dahod, 
Panchmahals, Valsad, Surat and Banaskantha districts. -IANS

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