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The No-Nonsense Guide to Minority Rights in South Asia THE title says it all and the accompanying 20-page bibliography substantiate the author’s claim that it is indeed a no-nonsense guide to minority rights in South Asia. So, after going through the 311 pages containing nothing but hard facts, one pauses to think: Which side of Rita Manchandra is more evident in her writings—the director, research at South Asia Forum for Human Rights or the senior journalist? The answer is the researcher without a doubt.
Manchanda in her book adopts a right-based approach and do not shy away from asking sensitive questions like "How secure or sacrosanct is even the normative idea of India for Muslims in Gujarat or Rajasthan, the indigenous communities in the north-east living under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the adivasis displaced by the Narmada dam?" She comes out with her analysis as to why minorities turn rebel or where the initiatives for protecting minority rights in this broad region are bungling. Not an easy job as more than 800 languages are spoken in the region and there are factors like religion, cast, creed, race, language, and even political and social policies to add fuel to the problems. For example, in Sri Lanka, the question of minority rights involves the question of state power, how it is distributed and shared among ethnic communities, namely Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim, while Nepal, an overwhelming Hindu nation, refuses to acknowledge its multiethnic identity. In Pakistan, region-based minorities—the Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Parsi and Ahmadiyya communities along with gender-based minority (women) are victimised in the name of constitution. Painting a secular picture of India where a Muslim was made a head of the State, a Sikh as head of government, a Dalit woman ruling the largest state, Uttar Pradesh, and a Roman Catholic and Indian citizen by naturalisation as head of the Congress Party, the author goes on to expose the farce behind the rosy scene—the non-existent 15-point programme for minorities in Rajasthan, how academic initiatives like the Sarva Shikha Abhiyan and Shiksha Abhiyan do not reach out to Muslim-dominated areas and poor representation of Dalits in elite educational institutions like IIT, medical and post-graduation institutions. There are case studies and facts and figures to support her argument. Well, for argument’s sake, one can quote Nobel laureate Amartya Sen from his book Identity and Violence—The Illusion of Destiny, that "the reflex to define oneself in a singular way has become stronger in the current era of globilisation `85 and when people focus on one strand of identity, they are likely to run into trouble—leaving themselves vulnerable to manipulators by the proponents of ethnic chauvinism". Nobody can deny that. But then in the same book, Sen lauds Moghul Emperor Akbar’s effort to legally codify minority rights, including religious freedom for all. And now Manchanda
highlighting the provisions for minority rights in South Asia and
their loopholes, one hopes that this no-nonsense guide will help both
the activists and authorities to put things into right perspective.
After all, it will be a shame to repeat what Bangadesh had done in
1993 by refusing to observe it as the Year of the World’s Indigenous
People and later Bhutan and Bangladesh abstaining from voting to adopt
the UNGA Resolution on Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
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Though
it is meant to be a reference book for academics and activists of
human rights or minority rights, the author has tried to make things
easy for a layman by dedicating an entire chapter on politics of
recognition that defines minorities and minority rights and also a
threadbare analysis of indigenous people and communities in
multiethnic and multi-cultural societies in Nepal, Bhutan, India,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.