SACW | March 7, 2007 Crisis in Pakistan / Sri Lanka on the Precipice / Bangladesh: Yunus / Implement Sachar Report ; New book on Golwalkar and Hindutva

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | March 7, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2372 - Year 9

[1]  Pakistan: Crisis situation (M B Naqvi)
[2]  Sri Lanka on the Precipice (Ahilan Kadirgamar)
[3]  Contextualising the Indo-Bangla dialogue on 
media and culture (Lubna Marium)
[4]  Bangladesh: Mohammed Yunus in politics : 
Noble, but risky venture (Amulya Ganguli)
[5]  India:  In praise of a brand new spring offensive (Jawed Naqvi)
[6]  India: Sachar Report on the Status of Indian Muslims & affirmative action:
     (i)  Conclusions of the MSD-CC workshop on Sachar Report
     (ii)  citizens petition for implementation of Sachar Committee report
     (iii)  CPI(M)'s Charter for Advancement of Muslim Community
     (iv)  'Rather Suspect', Editorial, The Telegraph
[7]   Terrifying Vision - a new book on Golwalkar

____


[1]


The News
March 7, 2007

CRISIS SITUATION

by M B Naqvi

America's high officials, media and think-tank 
community are demanding what the Musharraf regime 
finds hard to do. The thrust of the demand is 
that Pakistan should prevent the Taliban from 
using Pakistan's territory to attack Afghan 
targets. They think that Pakistan owes it to them.

Given the spreading chaos and crises in the 
Middle East, an assessment of what will happen if 
Pakistan were to comply with endless American 
demands would show that it might soon be asked to 
participate in American campaigns against Iran. 
The troubles in that region cannot be 
compartmentalised into Afghanistan, Iraq and 
other pressure points, of course. Pakistan has 
already showed that it remains loyal to the 
American camp by holding an OIC foreign 
ministers' conference in which Iran, Syria or any 
representative from Hezbollah, Hamas, were not 
invited. That showed where Pakistan stood: as 
pro-American as they come. Despite that, the 
current rift with US threatens to grow. US anger 
flows from Pakistan's inability to unstintedly 
use its armed forces against all suspected of 
being Taliban or their supporters.

What position can a Pakistani commentator take, 
especially when he has never endorsed Islamabad's 
Afghan policy? American demand is surely 
impractical. Many Pakistanis have explained they 
have already done the maximum they could. They 
say the problem is not of Pakistan's making; it 
is an Afghan problem for Afghans or their 
occupation forces to solve. To leave the issue at 
that is not too unreasonable expostulation. Is 
that adequate or satisfying?

Pakistan is troubled by divides even within its 
elites, let alone the basic one between the 
elites and the plebeians. The common people have 
never counted for much. Elites are divided today 
in various ways and the state remains under the 
occupation of Pakistan Army that has controlled 
and guided the nominal government even when it 
comprised civilians. Policies Pakistan has 
followed since Ayub Khan and even earlier were 
army dictated. Civilian input has been pitifully 
insufficient. It is a false patriotism to rush to 
Islamabad's defence in all the twists and turns 
vis-a-vis America in which the impact on aam admi 
was never a consideration. Outside the charmed 
circle of power, nobody matters.

As for the plebeians, some crumbs did indeed fall 
from the high table for them because some 
development has taken place. Pakistan's economy 
of 2007 is much bigger than 1947's. That 
development has greatly enriched the elites but 
has not substantially reduced the growing numbers 
of the poor. Quality of economic development has 
been demonstrated by virtually non-stop inflation 
at least from 1960s onward. Ordinary people, 
including ordinary writers, do become cynical and 
apolitical. What is their input or what they 
receive, is what they want to know.

What is wrong is that Pakistan's foreign policy 
has been built around just one need: how to find 
enough resources to sustain a modern military 
that needs constant modernisation because local 
resources were not enough and even today, had it 
not been the inflow from the west of something 
like $12 billion in additional help during the 
last six years, things would have been worse 
despite normal Paris Club loans.

Thanks to the American connection, Pakistan has 
in 60 years received something like $100 billion 
aid and some of these dollars were much stronger 
than today's. The country today owes $38 billion, 
plus there may be more in the pipeline not yet 
finally registered. The quantum of aid so far, in 
today's dollars, must be equal to $200 billion 
while for this much industrialisation, less than 
half the amount should have sufficed. Pakistani 
elites' financial health shows that a substantial 
portion of foreign aid was in fact cornered by 
them.

Anyhow, when a great power especially funds a 
poor and smaller state, it expects a quid pro 
quo. It was that liability that converted 
Pakistan into a satellite of America. Pakistan 
has often bridled against American demands at 
various stages; even these elites have sometimes 
found them to be excessive.

To be brutally frank, Americans treat Pakistanis 
as a bunch of mercenaries who will do anything 
for money and some of the speeches one has heard 
from Blair and Bush after 9/11 amounted to 
saying: 'here is cash on the barrel. Now be with 
us'. The Americans are all too conscious of what 
they have done and demand compliance with their 
wishes. They are in a huff because Pakistanis 
have failed to live up to their expectations.

As for Afghanistan, Pakistan has always 
incongruously tried to act the big brother. 
Pakistan was a part of the big international 
intrigue that ultimately resulted in the Saur 
Revolution of 1978 and was a major actor in 
Americans' proxy war against the Soviets for 
almost the 1980s' decade. That enriched some 
Pakistani officials no end.

After 1989 Americans left Afghanistan to Pakistan 
altogether. Pakistan's relations with its Afghan 
cronies, later known as Northern Alliance, did 
not remain friendly for long. Islamabad won back 
its suzerain-like position in Afghanistan by 
using its secret weapon: Taliban. The latter 
quickly conquered the Pushtoon parts of 
Afghanistan and established a Taliban caliphate.

Pakistan started dreaming dreams of strategic 
depth and a confederation and so on -- supposedly 
to confront India better. But even the Taliban 
were not as pliable as the Pakistanis wanted. 
Ultimately against Pakistan's advice, Taliban 
fell out with the Americans and after 9/11 the US 
invaded and occupied Afghanistan. Now, Pakistan 
and Afghanistan are both helpless satellites of 
the US. Why should one sympathise with Pakistan's 
military rulers? True, Taliban are a grave danger 
to Pakistan. But Taliban were Taliban even in the 
1990s. Shouldn't some heads roll?

This government would do whatever the Americans 
may want. The thing to do is to learn to stand on 
one's own legs. Unless the country can reinvent 
itself as a people-friendly state and start an 
economic development that is integrated and 
self-reliant, there will be no future. 
International loans are all right so long as they 
produce something with which they can be repaid. 
Building infrastructure is Pakistan's own duty. 
It has no business to take loans for projects 
that do not add to the productivity or financial 
ability to repay within, say eight to nine years.

But that is for the long haul. It is contingent 
on a political revolution that liberates the 
state structures of Pakistan from the 
stranglehold of the army. If the people do not 
win back their sovereignty soon, Pakistan is 
going to be in serious trouble. Hopes for a 
brighter future will fade for a long, long time 
to come.

The writer is a veteran journalist and freelance columnist.



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[2]


The Economic and Political Weekly
February 24, 2007

SRI LANKA ON THE PRECIPICE
POLITICAL SOLUTION OR SWEEPING DEBACLE?

The report of the All Party Representative 
Committee on constitutional reform and the 
establishment of the commission of inquiry to 
investigate human rights violations offer a 
glimmer of hope in Sri Lanka.

by Ahilan Kadirgamar

The much internationalised Norwegian peace 
process in Sri Lanka has failed.  And various 
international actors, while publicly stating 
their hopes for peace, are in reality engaged in 
accounting for the unforeseen failure, in 
political, monetary and resource terms. The bulk 
of the blame will be cast on the Liberation 
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The LTTE's stance was characteristically 
intransigent. It was unwilling to transform and 
adapt itself to democratic politics and cease 
from its habitual preoccupation with eliminating 
all traces of opposition, it rejected the 
possibility of a deal with the south and resumed 
a debilitating war for separation. The accounting 
will also blame the southern political 
formations, which were unwilling yet again to 
arrive at a possible solution to the conflict and 
continued to prevaricate with minority concerns. 
Finally, the Norwegians themselves will have to 
take a significant share of the blame for their 
design of a process that lacked inclusivity, was 
weighted too heavily on an uncertain deal between 
the LTTE and the United National Party (UNP), 
sacrificed human rights for an erroneous 
conception of stability and for their active 
internationalisation of a process with grave 
foundational flaws.

The international actors, while apportioning 
blame and attempting to grasp the utter failure 
of their models of conflict resolution, are also 
trying to salvage any positive gains from the 
internationalised peace process. The last leg of 
the international process launched in 2002, is 
now an undeclared war. What is open now is the 
possibility of putting forward a set of proposals 
for constitutional reform and some mechanisms for 
the protection of human rights and humanitarian 
access. The issue facing the international actors 
is whether Sri Lanka will at least deliver on 
these dual concerns of constitutional reform and 
human rights, or would the process flounder so 
completely as to discredit the international 
community's attempts at peace building and 
conflict resolution.

The international actors' accounting and 
face-saving measures aside, the war in Sri Lanka 
has indeed come back with a vengeance to the 
detriment of the civilian population. While there 
can be no illusions about the LTTE's project of a 
separate state and fascist rule over the north 
and east, the reaction of the Sri Lankan state 
and the Rajapkse government strongly indicate 
moves towards a military solution accompanied by 
brutal repression of any opposition to that 
military project. The Sri Lankan state then is at 
the crossroads, it has to either choose a 
military solution with the attendant repression 
of human rights or it has to choose a political 
solution with protection of human rights. The 
military solution will involve the imposition of 
the majoritarian agenda on the minorities, 
whereas the political approach would demonstrate 
concern for the wellbeing of minorities and 
respect for international humanitarian law, even 
when the state is responding to provocations by 
the LTTE.

Dangerous Turn
During the last many months, the Sri Lankan state 
has taken a dangerous turn. It has, in responding 
to calculated provocations by the LTTE, got 
muddled up in a territorial war with adverse 
humanitarian consequences. Politically, the 
controversial Supreme Court has ruled for the 
demerger of the North-East Province, which was 
temporarily merged as part of the Indo-Lanka 
accord. A process of engagement with the LTTE 
characterised by appeasement during the first few 
years of the peace process, has now turned into 
an engagement based on the war on terror, 
particularly with the announcement of new 
anti-terror regulations in December 2006.

There has also been a militarisation of the 
state, in actions ranging from the 
disproportionate influence of the defence 
establishment to even the appointment of 
governors and a government agent in Trincomalee 
with military backgrounds.  There has been a 
resurgence of disappearance, torture and other 
grave violations reminiscent of the darkest years 
of the war in the 1980s and early 1990s. In most 
estimates, over 3,000 people were killed in 2006, 
over 2,50,000 internally displaced and another 
16,000 have found refuge in India. In short, the 
ground reality points to a major shift in the 
direction of a militarist approach to the 
situation with scant regard for human rights.

On the other side, there is also hope for a 
political solution arrived at through a parallel 
process initiated by the Sri Lankan president. 
There are mechanisms which were perhaps 
instigated by the prodding of the international 
community, which have the potential to address 
both the questions of constitutional reform and 
human rights.

In July 2006 the president initiated the All 
Party Representative Committee (APRC) and the all 
party conference to produce proposals for 
constitutional reform in Sri Lanka. A 
multi-ethnic experts committee consisting of a 
total of 17 members was formed to provide advice 
to the APRC. In December, after much deliberation 
a majority of the committee, 11 of them from all 
three ethnic groups produced a report promoting 
the need for devolution of power and power 
sharing at the centre with a bicameral 
legislature.  While a minority report consisting 
of four Sinhala nationalists was also produced 
calling for a unitary constitution unacceptable 
to most members of the minority communities, the 
majority report was a testament to the ability of 
Sri Lankans to propose imaginative solutions for 
the complex problems related to the ethnic 
question. Thissa Vitarana, the chairman of the 
APRC, has put forward his own report based on the 
organisation's deliberations and findings of the 
majority report, for the consideration of the 
APRC's final proposal.  The advancement hailed by 
both these reports themselves was a victory, 
given the climate of intimidation and 
manipulation by Sinhala nationalist actors within 
the state. It should be noted that this victory 
also came at tremendous costs, as Kethesh 
Loganathan the secretary to the experts committee 
was assassinated by the LTTE a month after the 
committee was convened.

On the human rights front, in response to 
pressure from the international community on some 
of the grave violations of human rights such as 
the massacre of the 17 ACF aid workers, the 
president appointed a commission of inquiry (COI) 
consisting of eight commissioners, a number of 
whom have an excellent reputation and an 
international eminent persons group to support 
the work of those commissioners.  The 
commissioners, with a tenure of one year, are to 
look at 15 serious violations beginning in August 
2005 and have the mandate to take up other cases 
in the future.  It is yet to be seen if the COI, 
which is just beginning its work, will be able to 
challenge the climate of impunity in the country.

Dual Mechanisms
These dual mechanisms meant to shift the 
militarist and repressive approach towards a 
political and human rights approach are the 
minimum necessary for the task at hand, and it 
will be an ongoing struggle to see if the 
mechanisms can also challenge the Sinhala 
nationalist forces that have reared their heads 
during the past year. It further raises questions 
about the resiliency of the political approach if 
the LTTE continues to escalate the undeclared 
war. But here again, the cards are with the 
state, as to whether it will attempt to contain 
the LTTE, defeating it politically, or will it 
adopt a purely militarist position and engage in 
a “war for peace” manoeuvre, with elusive 
military gains and definite humanitarian costs 
and the alienation of the Tamil community?

One of the lost opportunities of the years of the 
peace process was the absence of efforts towards 
building social movements for human rights and 
democratisation.  Sections of the Sri Lankan 
elite seem all too keen to oppose the current 
trajectory in Sri Lanka, by merely mobilising 
neocolonial labels such as a "failed state".

Appealing to the international community alone 
will not solve the problems in Sri Lanka. The 
crisis in Sri Lanka is one of a crisis not only 
of the state, but also of civil society and of 
its elite. Just as the majority report and the 
Vitarana report are victories in the direction of 
a political solution that addresses the 
aspirations of the minority communities, the COI 
also needs to deliver a serious challenge to the 
climate of impunity in the country.

Today, as the state swings between a political 
solution and a militarist approach with possible 
infringement of democratic rights, not only in 
the north and east, but also in the entire 
country, a balance in favour of a political 
solution would also hold out hope of a democratic 
future for the country.

For Tamil aspirations, every past attempt at 
constitutional reform has been that of being 
kicked around like a football by the two major 
southern political parties in Sri Lanka. This 
football game reached the international arena 
with the much internationalised Norwegian peace 
process, where Tamil aspirations were again 
booted between the sole representation claims of 
the LTTE and the majoritarian claims of the 
southern political forces. The international 
games for legitimacy and support seem to be now 
taking a different direction, with the government 
leaning towards Pakistan and China as its 
diplomatic dancing partners. Such games are bound 
to unnerve India, which has had a clear and 
consistent position over the last two decades 
calling for a political solution within a united 
Sri Lanka while addressing the aspirations of the 
minority communities It is in that long-term 
context that the APRC process should be actively 
engaged.

The mechanisms described above, intended to find 
a political solution and address human rights, 
however fragile and despite the withering attacks 
and scepticism, are the only major mechanisms at 
work in Lanka during this volatile period. The 
work of such mechanisms needs to be above the 
local, regional and international political fray. 
The APRC process needs to deliver an acceptable 
political solution, the Sri Lankans need to 
engage with it and others should come out in 
solidarity.  The odds of success are not great, 
but cynicism in the face of a once in a decade 
opportunity is irresponsible. It is now a time 
for praxis to defeat extremism and chauvinism on 
all sides and to strengthen those standing for 
peace and justice.


______


[3]

New Age
March 5, 2007

CONTEXTUALISING THE INDO-BANGLA DIALOGUE ON MEDIA AND CULTURE

by Lubna Marium

In January 2006, Debapriya Bhattacharya, the 
charismatic economist of the Centre for Policy 
Dialogue, requested me to join a forthcoming 
track-2 Indo-Bangla dialogue on media and 
culture, organised by the CPD and the Delhi-based 
India International Centre. Maybe, given the fact 
that I am a diehard Tagorean and a Sanskritist on 
top, Debapriya then asked me with a twinkle in 
his eyes, 'Apa, which delegation do you want to 
be in - the Bangladeshi or the Indian?' Tout de 
suite, I replied, 'Put me in the South Asian one.'
    This was-to-be election year, when the state 
of the country is on everyone's mind, it must 
seem sacrilegious to cast aside nationalism. The 
truth is that, I am in no mood to be just a 
patriotic Bangladeshi, especially if it means the 
sporting of an insular identity which does not 
acknowledge the multilayered dimensionality of 
such external appellations.
    So, what does it mean to be either a 
Bangladeshi or a South Asian? If you are South 
Asian do you stop being a Bangladeshi, or does 
being a Bangladeshi prevent one from being a 
South Asian? An essay by Harvard Fellow Sissela 
Bok tries to resolve riddles such as these by 
viewing the tussle between patriotism and 
cosmopolitanism in the perspective of parts and 
whole. Bok quotes the following passage from 
Alexander Pope,
    'God loves from Whole to Parts: but human soul
    Must rise from Individual to the Whole.
    Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
    As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
    The centre mov'd, a circle strait succeeds,
    Another still, and still another spreads,
    Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace,
    His country next, and next all human race,
    /..../'
    Of course, ancient Indian texts give us the 
same concept in the aphorism 'Vasudhaiva 
kutumbakam': the world, verily, is kindred. A 
liberal mind, believing in equal dignity of the 
entire human race, has the propensity to embrace 
a universal space of reasoning. Destiny, however, 
binds us, almost irrevocably, to specific locales 
and cultural particularities. By merely 
acknowledging the fact that we are part of a 
greater whole, we take the first step towards a 
celebration of each singularity while accepting 
their linkages with each other and the entirety. 
Being South Asian is just such an acknowledgement.
    For me being South Asian is to acknowledge my 
history, my geography, my language, my culture; 
in fact, it helps me to acknowledge my identity 
itself. As a South Asian I feel free to embrace 
as mine - the ruins of Mohenjadaro as the 
beginning of my history, the towering peaks of 
the Himalayas as the source of my rivers, the 
epics in Sanskrit as the watershed of all my 
folktales and folk philosophies. As a South 
Asian, I can understand the historicity of 
migration and informal trade. As a South Asian, I 
can grieve besides the dried up banks of the old 
Brahmaputra in Mymensingh, while empathising with 
the agony of the village belles of Madhya Pradesh 
who walk for miles to fill a single earthen 
vessel with water. As a South Asian, I know that 
an imaginary line will not prevent the dengue 
virus in Dhaka from crossing into Kolkata. To be 
a South Asian is to accept both the privileges 
and the responsibilities of being part of a whole.
    But Debapriya's was not a regional colloquium. 
It was a bilateral dialogue between just two 
South Asian nations; nations of unequal economic 
and political strength and a growing history of 
mistrust. Were we to sit at the dialogue as 
estranged neighbours or as two nations belonging 
to a region whose shared history went back all 
the way to antiquity?
    During my six years in India, studying the 
Sanskrit texts of the shilpa-shastras, I had 
asked myself many times if there was any serious 
constituency for Indo-Bangla solidarity in India. 
My assessment is that, if there is such a 
constituency it is small in number, unlike the 
highly visible lobby for Indo-Pak accord. It is, 
however, also true that there isn't any lobby 
against Indo-Bangla ties. If anything it is more 
a lack of interest about all things Bangladeshi. 
India is a large and diverse country. There are 
intangible distances between the North and the 
South, the East and the West, within India 
itself. Pakistan, surprisingly, does not suffer 
from this distancing with Delhi, maybe due to 
geographical proximity and a bit of ethnic 
brotherhood, which supersedes fifty years of 
political rivalry. Bangladesh is in too far 
distant an East to be of much interest to the 
political or cultural circles of Delhi. I have 
come to the conclusion that the onus to create a 
popular consensus for Indo-Bangla solidarity, in 
Delhi, is most certainly Bangladesh's. The truth 
is that we have more to win.
    What stops us from making such an effort? Is 
it our pride in our sovereignty that blinds us to 
the reality of our geographical and historical 
linkages? Is it fear of economic and cultural 
hegemony? In today's globalised market, given the 
strides in communication technology, covert 
linkages are bound to develop, to ease the flow 
between goods and their consumption, if faced 
with undue obstacles. Bangladesh can only gain by 
acknowledging the inevitability of these 
realities and instead use them as positive 
leverages by linking them with some action or 
accommodation that is to its own advantage. 
Furthermore, it is fruitless to take a 
generalised, judgmental stand for or against 
Indo-Bangla solidarity instead of judging each 
issue on its own merit. For some years I have 
felt that we need a multiplicity of instruments 
to create a web of contacts, friends, and allies 
through whom a consensus for a mutually 
beneficial solidarity can be built.
    With all this on my mind I readily agreed to join the CPD-IIC dialogue.
    Of course, ours was a dialogue just between 
civil societies of India and Bangladesh, and 
fortunately, trade and politics were not on the 
agenda. The idea was to identify commonalities 
which would pave the way for future negotiations 
on other matters, so that self-interest would not 
always subjugate principles and logic. Countries 
best respond to one another on the basis of how 
the other can help fulfil their own objectives. 
Since our talks were on media and culture, I 
presume the aim of the dialogue was to identify 
ways in which these two sectors could create a 
congenial environment in which these objectives 
and the various areas of cooperation could be 
identified and worked upon.
    On the flight from Dhaka to Delhi, Tasmima 
Hossain, editor of Ananya and a member of our 
team, handed me the book 'Bangladesh: The Next 
Afghanistan?' by H Karlekar who, we had been 
informed, was to be part of the Indian 
delegation. Did we, we asked each other, see 
ourselves as a future Taliban state? The general 
consensus was that we did not. Mahfuz Anam, the 
dynamic editor of the Daily Star, commented that 
even though there wasn't a cause for alarm, we 
should not be complacent and that a determined 
minority could achieve untold harm. I reminded 
him of that year's UNDP Human Development Report 
which lauded Bangladesh for its recent 
improvements in human development indicators such 
as lowered fertility and infant mortality rates, 
and increasing female enrolment in schools. These 
indicated, I said, a rising awareness of social 
issues not consonant with the Talibanisation of 
society. However, in spite of these gnawing 
concerns, there continued to be an air of eager 
anticipation, as all of us were looking forward 
to a lively dialogue.
    Our fifteen-strong delegation, including, 
among others, Dr Anisuzzaman, Debapriya, Abul 
Khair Litu, and Shuborna Mustafa, arrived in 
Delhi on January 15, 2006, to be welcomed by a 
pleasant spring breeze, in spite of forecasts of 
cold waves. It augured well for our talks 
scheduled for the next two days. Professor Rehman 
Sobhan, who was the convener or our delegation, 
joined us in Delhi. Dr Enamul Haque arrived on 
the morning of the first day of the talks.
    Early next morning we decided to put up a 
small table with some English publications from 
Bangladesh, a few periodicals from Dhaka, and a 
sample selection of audio and video material. Our 
general feeling was that the Indian delegation, 
though most stellar in its composition, were 
mostly uninformed about Bangladesh. The Indian 
side included, among others, film personalities 
like Farouque Sheikh and Nandita Das; a high 
profile representation from the arts, literary 
and academic circle of Delhi and several renowned 
media representatives like Rathikant Basu of Tara 
TV, Siddharth Varadarajan from the Hindu, Bhaskar 
Ghosh, former secretary to the government of 
India, and BG Verghese, columnist and professor, 
the Centre for Policy Research. I was seated next 
to Farouque Sheikh who proved to be most amiable 
and well-meaning but, as we had presumed, he had 
no clue about Bangladesh. This was compensated by 
his intense curiosity and desire to know. I tried 
my best to fill in the gaps as we waited for the 
proceedings to begin. Later, Farouque Sheikh 
charmed us with his very rational and heartfelt 
responses on various issues.
    Kapila Vatsyayan, doyenne of cultural studies 
in India, as chairperson of the IIC, set the tone 
for the dialogue with her insightful opening 
remarks in which she emphasised the trans-border 
linkages of culture between India and Bangladesh, 
hoping that could create strong bonds of identity 
and friendship. The urban development and culture 
minister, Jaipal Reddy, continued on the same 
note. Media, he stated, could play a major role 
in improving relations between neighbours. While 
promising increased cultural exchanges between 
India and Bangladesh, he cautioned that the 
impact of cultural exchanges may not be dramatic 
and immediate. However, he continued, they had 
the potential to be far more effective than mere 
diplomatic exchanges.
    A genteel opening session, I thought, but was 
more pleased with Rehman Sobhan's remarks which 
had a bit more teeth to them. He forthrightly 
addressed Bangladesh's lack of visibility in the 
Indian media and the Indian media's propensity to 
tow the government line, instead of playing an 
independent role in its coverage of Bangladesh. 
He hoped the present dialogue would help the 
media on both sides to regain their autonomy. 
Rehman Sobhan also hoped Bangladeshi cultural 
activities could be made as accessible for 
Indians as Indian culture was in Bangladesh. Deb 
Mukherjee, convener of the Indian delegation, 
instilled a sense of purposeful immediacy in the 
dialogue by asserting that the guiding principle 
of this dialogue was to come up with 
recommendations that were not just in consonance 
with ground realities but were also 'doable and 
deliverable'.
    I had been looking forward to a hands-on 
debate on the conceptual issues of bilateral 
dialogue but soon realised that the heads of our 
delegations were veteran negotiators who had had 
their share of abstract discussions and now 
eagerly wanted to see their efforts being 
implemented and translated into action. In fact, 
I was surprised to hear that this was the 
fifteenth dialogue of its sort, with very little 
of the earlier dialogues ever having gone beyond 
words in lengthy reports.
    I still wasn't sure if the tone of the 
dialogue would continue to be so amiable and 
accommodating and if we could actually bare our 
cards on the table. If nothing else, I thought, I 
will have met a few luminaries like Kapilaji 
whose work in preserving, publishing and 
elucidating valuable ancient manuscripts on art I 
have admired for long. I looked forward to the 
main sessions, first on media and then on culture.

______


[4]

Deccan Herald
March 7, 2007

MOHAMMED YUNUS IN POLITICS : NOBLE, BUT RISKY VENTURE

by Amulya Ganguli

Nagarik Shakti gives some hope for the 
Bangladeshi people but the challenges before it 
are many.

The debut of Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus in 
politics will be greeted with a mixture of hope 
and apprehension. Hope because, as the Grameen 
bank hero has acknowledged, his entry cannot but 
recall memories of the high expectations which 
Bangladesh experienced in the early days of its 
liberation. The jubilation, which the new-born 
country witnessed when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman flew 
into Dhaka in a white-and-blue British Royal Air 
Force jet in 1972 was akin to the mood in India 
on August 15, 1947. Perhaps the joy was even more 
unalloyed because there was no sorrow, as there 
was in India about partition.

Yet, it did not take long for the cheers to die 
down. The fault was Mujib's, because he mistook 
the public adulation for an endorsement of 
one-party rule by suppressing all opponents and 
becoming President for life. The consequences 
were predictable: an army takeover and 
assassination of the Awami League leader and his 
family. Only two of his daughters, Hasina and 
Rehana, escaped because they were abroad. Since 
those fateful days in 1975, Bangladesh has gone 
steadily downhill, with neither army rule nor 
democratic governance providing any semblance of 
stability.

Yunus, therefore, is bound to be regarded by wide 
sections of the people as someone who can rescue 
the benighted country. It is significant that his 
arrival in politics is at a peculiar time when 
Bangladesh is neither under the army, as often in 
the past, nor under the political parties. 
Instead, it is in some kind of a limbo. There is 
an administration in place, ruling through 
emergency decrees. But its success in maintaining 
peace is an indication that the country was so 
disillusioned by the confrontational tactics of 
Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party 
and Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League that it is 
not too displeased with the suspension of civil 
rights and the postponement of elections.

But it is an unusual political arrangement, which 
carries the danger of degenerating into 
autocratic rule, either by the army or by a 
single-party as in Mujib's time. Yunus provides 
an escape route from this dismal possibility. Or 
does he? His party, Nagarik Shakti (Citizen's 
Power) will typically be seen to represent, as 
its name suggests, the rosy dreams with which all 
pioneers embark on their ventures. His first task 
will be to set up a countrywide network to carry 
his message and mobilise the voters. It is 
possible that those associated with his Grameen 
Bank network will play a major role in this 
respect. Even then, it will virtually be a 
one-man party, wholly dependent on its 
charismatic leader.

Arguably, if free and fair elections are held, 
Yunus may sweep the polls, as the political 
novice N T Rama Rao did in Andhra Pradesh in 
1983. Sometimes, the dissatisfaction with the 
cynicism and corruption of the established 
parties is so high that the electorate eagerly 
grasps the opportunity that a new entrant 
provides with his promise about clean politics. 
But winning the first election is only the 
beginning of a long process, whose pitfall lies 
in the slow transformation of the new party into 
a mirror image of the old, discredited ones. The 
danger is all the greater in one-man parties 
since it is nearly impossible for the top leader 
to keep a tab on the functionaries at the lower 
levels.

The reason for the degeneration is simple enough. 
Since nearly all parties, especially in the 
subcontinent, need a great deal of money and 
manpower to run their campaigns, it is virtually 
impossible to maintain high standards of probity. 
Black money and anti-social elements gradually 
come to the fore. Even if Yunus's personal 
example draws idealistic young men and women into 
the organisation, their numbers cannot be more 
than a small percentage of the total. Besides, 
other parties are not going to sit idle. Already, 
Sheikh Hasina has asked how Yunus can claim to be 
concerned about the poor when his bank charges 
interest rates which are sometimes as high as 30 
per cent.

But it isn't the political challenges, which will 
bother Yunus so much as the social and cultural 
issues. As the Faustian bargains which both 
Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina have struck with 
the Taliban-type outfits show, Yunus will face 
his main difficulty from these retrogressive 
groups even if he is initially successful in 
politics. The worst fallout from the unending 
squabbles between the two Begums is the emergence 
of the fundamentalists from the shadows where 
they had retreated at the time of liberation. 
Mujib's ascent in 1971-72 was seen not only as 
the victory of Bangladeshi nationalism but also 
of secularism. But if the country has become 
virtually the second epicentre of terrorism, the 
reason is the manner in which Khaleda Zia 
encouraged extremists so that her party could 
depend on them to maintain a majority in 
parliament. Sadly, even Sheikh Hasina fell into 
this trap when she entered into an alliance with 
the fundamentalist Khelafat-e-Majhlis, betraying 
Mujib's secular legacy.

If Yunus wants to reclaim the legacy, he should 
be willing to undo Ziaur Rahman's conversion of 
Bangladesh into an Islamic state and overturn the 
ostracism of Taslima Nasreen enforced by 
fundamentalists. But it is unlikely that he will 
be able to do so - at least not initially - 
because of the furore he would create by 
offending the Islamic zealots. These elements, 
though out of tune with the essentially tolerant 
nature of Islam in Bangladesh, still have enough 
potential for creating trouble by whipping up 
religious sentiments and demonising not only the 
minority Hindus, but also the Sufis and the 
Ahmediyas. So, the hope aroused by Yunus may not 
be immediately fulfiled.



______


[5] 


Dawn
March 05, 2007

IN PRAISE OF A BRAND NEW SPRING OFFENSIVE

by Jawed Naqvi

Swami Agnivesh, the saffron clad social reformer, 
activist for secularism and Dalit rights was busy 
subverting the Indian system last week. Muslims 
should marry Hindus, he exhorted his interactive 
audience in a TV programme that was recorded for 
state-run Doordarshan. Brahmins should marry 
Shudras. The money-lending Baniyas should marry 
farmers of the Jaat community.

To narrow their geographical aloofness, Naga 
tribals from the northeast should marry Tamil 
Christians from the south, and Kashmiris should 
marry Keralites. Shias and Sunnis should marry 
too, like their many Iraqi counterparts, and the 
upper caste Syeds should not hesitate in taking a 
groom or a bride from the Mehtar community of 
India's caste-bound Muslims, many of whom still 
work as lowly scavengers.

There was no need for conversion to anyone's 
faith. Lord Wavell, the British Governor General, 
had opened up the possibility of taking religion 
out of marriage. He had instituted the Special 
Marriages Act, primarily to give legitimacy to 
the children of British "Tommies" by letting the 
soldiers take Indian wives. Today the law enables 
millions of Indian couples to defy the system 
which is otherwise heavily loaded in favour of 
religious and caste prejudices, to marry in a 
pact that assures unbridled gender and social 
equality.

The TV programme hosted by Swami Agnivesh is 
appropriately called Manthan, the churning. If he 
succeeds in his mission most mainstream Indian 
dailies would lose a huge chunk of their revenues 
they siphon off from matrimonial ads. These 
newspapers wilfully promote caste and religious 
affinities by carrying notices that are rooted in 
deplorable social divisions. In the passing a 
well-known movie actor was also slammed for 
making his future daughter-in-law, also a 
successful "bollywood" star, go through degrading 
religious rituals so that his son would not die 
as a result of the "ill-starred" matrimony. The 
heroine's date of birth is considered 
inauspicious according to the Hindu calendar, 
hence the obscurantist antidote to ward off the 
evil shadow. Agnivesh also rapped the media for 
not targeting the issue despite its obvious 
social importance. He thought TV channels and 
newspapers implicitly endorsed this religious 
fumigation of the poor woman and failed to 
question the demeaning rituals involved in making 
her "marriageable".

In this sense the popular movie star was not 
being any better than Najman Bua, the illiterate 
governess in our Lucknow home. The 80-year-old 
taskmaster, who clearly could not have read the 
Quran nor observed a single fast, would caution 
us nevertheless against playing Holi, the Hindu 
festival of colours. Najman claimed that "Allah 
Mian" would slice away a part of the skin if it 
got tainted by the pagan colours of north India's 
spring festival. If Najman Bua is right then 
millions of Indian Muslims, and goodness knows 
how many Pakistanis would lose portions of their 
skin in the next life. Cricketers Rameez Raja, 
Muhammad Khalil and Yassir Hameed should be 
heading for hell in the hereafter for allowing 
their Hindu friends to sprinkle them with colours 
when they were touring India a few years ago.

And what about the erstwhile Nawabs of Awadh who 
spent all of 13 days in celebrating Holi? Wajid 
Ali Shah's court played Raslila for Lord Krishna. 
The most famous Hindu dharmic play, Indra Sabha, 
was composed in his court by a Muslim writer. The 
Sufis of India celebrated Basant Panchmi by 
singing in praise of Saraswati, the deity of 
knowledge. They revived the festival of Basant, 
by bringing 'sarson' flowers and saffron chadars 
to the dargahs. The great poet, Amir Khusro, has 
written numerous Holi poems to his Guru, whom he 
compared to Krishna: Mohe suhagan, rang basanti 
rang de Khwajaji/ Aao, Sufiion sang Hori khelo.

Mediaeval poet and intellectual par excellence 
Ras Khan was one of the many Muslim "Krishna 
bhakts", not unlike Malik Mohhammed Jayasi who 
wrote the Padmavat. He renounced everything to 
live in Vrindavan, upon seeing a Baniya's son, 
whom he idolised as Krishna.

Sectarian zealots stalk citizens of Lahore across 
the border and other venues of Pakistan's Punjab 
province where the festival of Basant is observed 
with gaiety. India's rightwing Hindu politician 
Sushma Swaraj was blamed for stirring trouble 
against the Agra summit because of the loaded 
statements she made on the meeting between 
President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee. 
Yet, we had seen the same lady in a different 
avatar in Lahore. It was a day or two after the 
Lahore summit of February 1999, I think, when 
Sushma Swaraj was dancing away on the decorated 
rooftop at a Lahori Basant party. She had missed 
Benazir Bhutto by a whisper because the bus from 
Islamabad had brought us late. It wasn't the 
fault of the bus though. Ms Swaraj had 
commandeered all its passengers to the ruins of 
the ancient Katasraj temple en route. You should 
have seen her being idolised by Pakistani and 
Hindu devotees at the shrine.

In this context I came across an absorbing 
exchange of ideas by young Pakistanis on the 
website run as Pakistan Defence Forum. Some of 
the ideas are illuminating. Here's a sample: says 
someone called "visioninthedark: "Just as Basant 
is celebrated in Lahore and the Punjaab; there 
are many parts of Pakistan where Nawroz is 
celebrated as the New Year; specially in the 
Northern and Western regions. I for one come from 
a family that celebrates Nawroz and therefore 
would like to wish all those who celebrate this 
day a very Happy New Year."

Thus responds Chursy: "Yes I do celebrate Nawroz 
and would like to congratulate you on this 
occasion. As far as Basant goes it was glamorised 
recently. Initially Basant was limited to Lahore, 
Gujranwala, Kasur etc. Now I even see people in 
Karachi celebrating Basant (which is quite odd). 
Anyway I guess it's up to us to promote the 
Nawroz to the extent where people start taking it 
seriously."

Ilyas has reservations: "Yaar it is an Iranian 
thing, why should we celebrate it? I know most of 
the shias in Pakistan think that they are direct 
descendant of Persian people so they celebrate 
Persian events just to show that we are Persian. 
It is the new year in Persian calendar which we 
have no business using cause we already have two 
different calendars that we Muslims use. If 
somebody makes a case about celebrating Nawroz 
then why shouldn't we celebrate 'diwali', 'holi' 
and other subcontinent events since most of the 
population is more closely related to 
sub-continent culture than the Iranian one?"

The exchange is too long to be reproduced here 
but for those interested it can be found on the 
weblink: 
http://www.pakistanidefenceforum.com/lofiversion/index.php/t9018.html

So what does this debate on Holi, Basant and 
inter-religious marriages signify? For one there 
is a new kind of, shall we say, spring offensive 
under way, one that would make both the Taliban 
and their American pursuers squirm. No one would 
be more delighted than Swami Agnivesh and a 
growing number of like-minded folks across India, 
Pakistan and even of course Afghanistan.

Jawed Naqvi can be reached at jawednaqvi at gmail.com

______


[6]   Sachar Committee's Report  and Affirmative Action

o o o

(i)

[March 2, 2007]

CONCLUSIONS OF THE MSD-CC WORKSHOP ON SACHAR REPORT

Dear Friend,

We write to express our grateful thanks for your 
having made it convenient to attend and enrich 
the level of discussions at our two-day workshop 
on the Sachar Committee's Report with your 
expertise and experience.

Please visit the links:

For conclusions of the workshop:
  http://www.mfsd.org/meetinvite.htm

For information on theme of the workshop and resource persons:
  http://www.mfsd.org/sachar/conclusion.htm

As we had communicated to you in the beginning, 
the objective of the workshop was both to 
increase awareness about the contents of the 
Report as also to prepare the ground for a 
Citizens Campaign for governmental action on its 
recommendations. Needless to say, the campaign we 
propose will continue to depend on your valuable 
inputs from time to time and we hope we can count 
on your support for the same.

We are happy to inform you that the feedback from 
different cities and districts in Maharashtra 
since the workshop has been very positive. We 
have already had a very good meeting with 
representatives of a few organisations in Pune on 
Feb 12 and a series of regional meetings are 
planed for March and April.

As you will see from the report on the 
conclusions of the workshop, Muslims for Secular 
Democracy (MSD) and Communalism Combat were asked 
to assume certain secretarial and networking 
responsibilities for now. This we are happy to do 
fully conscious of the fact that for it to be 
effective the proposed Citizens Campaign must 
mean an alliance of the widest possible alliance 
of like-minded organisation, groups and 
individuals for it to be effective.

We urge you to forward this message to your 
friends and colleagues who may be interested in 
the proposed Citizens Campaign. And we look 
forward to ideas and suggestions from you as to 
how we could together take the initiative forward.

Javed Anand                  Teesta Setalvad

P.S.: Javed Anand will not be in Mumbai between 
Feb 20 and Feb 28. So please bear with us for not 
being able to respond to communications during 
this period.

P.P.S.: You could keep yourself informed about 
our future activities vis-à-vis Sachar report 
through the websites www.mfsd.org or 
www.sabrang.com.

o o o

(ii)

Petition for implementation of Sachar Committee 
Report. The petition will be submitted to 
President and
Prime Minister of India, Speaker of Parliament, 
Home Minister and Minister of Minority Affairs.

http://www.petitiononline.com/sushovan/petition.html

o o o

(iii)
CPI(M)'S CHARTER FOR ADVANCEMENT OF MUSLIM COMMUNITY
(March 05, 2007)

PREAMBLE

The 138 million (13.8 crore) Muslims in India are 
intrinsic to the multi-cultural, multi-lingual 
and multi-religious mosaic that is India. Secular 
democracy, under the Constitution, provides equal 
opportunities and fundamental rights for all 
irrespective of race, religion or creed as 
citizens of the country. A democratic system is 
evaluated by how it treats its minorities - 
whether religious, ethnic or linguistic. For 
fostering national unity, for strengthening 
democracy and secularism, it is essential that 
the Muslim minority, who constitute 13.4 per cent 
of the population, are provided equal 
opportunities to access the benefits of 
development and the fundamental rights given in 
the Constitution.

The Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee report has 
highlighted the deplorable socio-economic plight 
of the mass of the Muslim community. It has 
served to highlight the urgent need to adopt 
special measures for the upliftment in their 
social and economic conditions. It has also 
effectively rebutted the false and motivated 
propaganda about "minority appeasement".

In the light of the Sachar Committee report, the 
Central government must frame a concrete 
programme backed with adequate financial 
allocations to address the discrimination faced 
by minority communities, in particular the Muslim 
minority community in the economic, social and 
educational sphere. It is essential to 
immediately identify Muslim areas and conduct 
concrete surveys, so that the assistance can be 
concretized. This exercise must be done in a 
time-bound framework.

1.  Development

i) The government must formulate a sub-plan for 
the Muslim community on the lines of the tribal 
sub-plan.  There has to be a specific budgetary 
allocation in all development schemes for Muslims 
proportionate to their population at the 
all-India level.  Under a special component plan, 
allocation may be made in the states 
proportionate to the percentage of Muslims in 
that state.

ii) The implementation of existing schemes for 
minority welfare must be strictly monitored. 
Increased financial allocations to institutions 
such as Maulana Azad Foundation, NMDFC, Wakf 
Council etc. should be ensured to strengthen and 
expand the schemes.

iii) Effective steps for protection of Wakf 
properties and proper utilization of these 
properties for the welfare, educational and 
social development of the community.

iv) In Muslim populated villages and municipal 
wards, it is found that often there are neither 
ICDS nor primary health centers. These must be 
ensured.

v) Special schemes to ensure housing for poorer 
sections of the community must be ensured.
2.  Employment and Income generation

i) Provide reservations for dalit Muslims.

ii) In the important field of employment, it is 
necessary for OBC Muslims to get an adequate 
share of the reserved quota for OBCs. At present, 
even though they are listed in a large number of 
states as OBCs, they have hardly benefited 
through the OBC quota. Access to OBC certificates 
must be simplified. Where Muslim OBCs have not 
been listed, such an exercise must be completed 
in a time-bound manner. A monitoring mechanism 
can be set up in different states to check the 
progress on this front.

iii) In recruitments for state and Central 
security forces, Muslims must get adequate 
representation.

iv) Adequate number must be empanelled in all 
recruitment boards of selection committees.

v) Since large numbers of the Muslim community, 
including Muslim women,  are engaged in 
traditional work as artisans and self-employed, 
it is essential to make easy credit available to 
them. Smooth flow of credit from financial 
institutions, banks and various corporations for 
self-employment, micro-enterprises and small and 
medium scale industries must be ensured. The 15 
per cent allocation for minorities from priority 
sector bank loans assured by the Prime Minister 
must be implemented.

vi) It is found that Muslim women have not had 
adequate opportunities in the self-help group 
sector. Attention must be paid to form women's 
self-help groups among Muslims with bank linkages.

vii) Large scale skill development programmes to 
upgrade traditional skills must be organized by 
government for the community with special 
programmes for Muslim women. Special emphasis 
must be placed on trades traditionally undertaken 
by minority groups.

viii) In land reform programmes, in allocation of 
plots in residential and industrial areas, shops, 
stalls, petrol/gas dealerships, opportunities for 
Muslims should be ensured.
3.  Education

i)  Schools, including residential schools 
imparting modern education for both girls and 
boys must be built in all districts and blocks 
with sizable Muslim population. Muslim girls' 
hostels must be constructed to facilitate 
education among girls.

ii) Incentives for women's and girl's education 
must be given. Increase in the number of hostels 
including hostels for Muslim girls.

iii) There must be a substantial increase in 
increase in stipends and scholarships on means 
cum merit basis.

iv) Recruitment of Urdu-speaking teachers and 
filling up of vacancies of Urdu teaching posts in 
schools. Urdu must be available as an optional 
subject in all government and government-aided 
schools in areas with substantial Urdu-speaking 
population. Good quality textbooks in Urdu must 
be provided.

v) Efforts should be made to introduce and 
encourage scientific and job oriented education 
in Madarsas. In some states like West Bengal, 
general syllabus is also taught in Madarsas and 
certificates and degrees awarded by Madarsas are 
recognized. This enables easy migration from 
Madarsas to general education institutions. This 
model may be tried in other states also.

vi) Special programmes should be undertaken to 
establish vocational training institutes, 
polytechnics and colleges in Muslim-dominated 
areas.
4. Security

i) Justice to communal violence victims must be 
ensured. Adequate compensation to all victims 
including victims of the Gujarat genocide in line 
with that of the 1984 victims.

ii) All perpetrators of communal violence must be 
immediately brought to book within a time-bound 
framework, regardless of their public or official 
position.

iii) Recommendations of the Sri Krishna 
Commission on the Mumbai violence which indicted 
top politicians, police and government officers 
to be implemented.

iv) Government must end delay and immediately 
institute time-bound CBI investigations into the 
Gujarat genocide related cases, whose victims are 
still denied justice.

o o o

(iv)
The Telegraph
March 07, 2007

Editorial

RATHER SUSPECT

For communists, there never is an end of history 
or ideology. But the way the Communist Party of 
India (Marxist) has proposed to espouse the cause 
of the Muslims can only be described as an end to 
class struggle. It is a rejection of the 
ideological basis of a Marxist-Leninist party 
that can have far-reaching consequences for 
Indian politics and also for the CPI(M) itself. 
For a party that has always refused to accept any 
divisions in society other than the class 
division, this is almost a tectonic shift. The 
Marxists seem to have discovered India at last 
and accepted that religion, caste and other 
factors are more important to Indian politics 
than the class division. An indication of this 
was available at the last congress of the CPI(M) 
in 2005, when it decided to mobilize the people 
belonging to tribal and Dalit communities. The 
campaign for the Muslims is thus in line with the 
tactics adopted at the party congress.

Yet, the party's move on the Muslims smacks of 
political opportunism of the most blatant kind. 
Two recent developments seem to have pushed the 
party to put up a pro-Muslim face. While it 
mirrors the low socio-economic and educational 
status of the Muslims in the country, the Sachar 
committee also blows the lid off the Marxists' 
myth of a Muslim-friendly Bengal. The committee's 
finding that the Muslims' lot is the worst in 
Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh nails many a Left 
lie. The other event that must have unnerved the 
CPI(M) is the rise of the Jamait Ulema-i-Hind in 
Bengal in the wake of the controversy over the 
acquisition of land for new industries at 
Nandigram. The challenge of a new political 
mobilization by the Muslims has even forced the 
party to shed all pretences and join hands with a 
predominantly religious organization of the 
community. That is the measure of the about-turn 
for a party that swore by Marx's denunciation of 
religion as "the opium of the masses". The 
CPI(M)'s new-found love for the Muslims is thus a 
matter of political expediency. The challenge in 
Bengal has given the tactical move an air of 
urgency.

The report of the Sachar committee may prompt 
other parties also to redraw their strategies, 
especially on the eve of the forthcoming 
elections in UP. It can have an impact similar to 
the one that the Mandal Commission's 
recommendations on caste-based reservations had 
in the late Eighties. The CPI(M) would surely 
mount pressure on the United Progressive Alliance 
government to introduce a sub-plan for the 
economic development of the Muslims and try to 
make political capital out of it. But charity, 
even for a Marxist party, must begin at home. In 
its 43-year history, the party never had a Muslim 
or Dalit in its politburo. With credentials such 
as these, the CPI(M)'s minority report must be 
more than a little suspect.

______


[7]


TERRIFYING VISION
Category: Biography
Author: Jyotirmaya Sharma
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Price: Rs 295

Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906-73) was the 
second sarsanghachalak or supreme guide of the 
Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh 
(RSS), a position he held for thirty-three years.

Though he was not its founder, he cast the 
organization in his own image, and remains to 
this day the most influential ideologue not only 
of the RSS but also of all the organizations 
'inspired' by it - including the Bharatiya Janata 
Party (BJP), which led the country's ruling 
coalition from 1999 to 2004.

This unprecedented and extremely important book 
is perhaps the first to examine Golwalkar's 
thought and his legacy closely and critically. 
Focusing on the arguments delineated in the 
writings and speeches of Golwalkar, Jyotirmaya 
Sharma questions the assumptions upon which the 
ideologues and champions of Hindutva seek to 
establish a Hindu nation in India.

As it highlights how much these arguments derive 
from eighteenth-and nineteenth-century 
Indologists, and how closely they parallel 
Fascist ideology, the book unravels the 
confusion, intolerance and intellectual deficit 
that has gone into Hindu nationalist thinking. It 
comes to the conclusion that the politics of 
Hindu nationalism feeds on a dangerous concept of 
the nation state and a misunderstanding of the 
very idea of what Hinduism is and who is a Hindu.

In doing so, the book also provides an 
opportunity to engage with the politics of 
Hindutva and its various manifestations in the 
contemporary political scenario.

About the Author

Jyotirmaya Sharma lectured in political 
philosophy at the universities of Delhi, Hull and 
Oxford. He was a Fellow at the Centre for the 
Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, and the 
Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.

He has also worked with the Times of India and 
The Hindu. His book Hindutva: Exploring the Idea 
of Hindu Nationalism was published by Penguin in 
2003.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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