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Budget
takes on food prices Indians in
Malaysia |
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Indo-Pak
peace process
Mystique
of simplicity
Woman empowerment for
the Muslim community requires different tools. Their socio-economic
indices vary from the women of majority community. Yet, they aspire to
join the mainstream economic force. Hence, feminism for the women of
this community needs to be spelt with different semantics.
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Indians in Malaysia
Malaysia
has a democratically elected government, yet it has a system that discriminates against its minorities. Indians in Malaysia are among the worst sufferers. Even a peaceful protest by them is not tolerated when their grievances are genuine. The latest example is the arrest of 109 persons (100 of them were released a little while later) in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday when they held a demonstration in protest against the introduction of a controversial book as part of the senior school curriculum. The book has derogatory expressions like “pariah” referring to the Indians, mostly Hindus from south India. Ideally, the publication should have been withdrawn by the government when all sections of the Indian-origin Malaysians have been opposed to it as it hurts their religious sentiments. But it seems the authorities have no regards for the views of the weakest minority in Malaysia. The Malaysian government says that it acted strongly against the protesters, belonging to the Human Rights Party, an offshoot of the outlawed Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), because they chose to “violate” the law despite having been warned not to do so in advance. It mentioned the support of 13 NGOs of Indian-Malaysians in favour of the government’s stance. But no one knows the standing of these so-called NGOs. There is the possibility of these NGOs having been purchased by the government to come clean in the eyes of the international community. Even if one keeps aside the views of the Human Rights Party of Hindraf because of its allegedly extremist background, the Malaysian government cannot be absolved of the charge of its unfair treatment to the people of Indian origin, mostly poor. The objections against the controversial book raised by Hindraf are also supported by the biggest and moderate grouping of Indians, the Malaysian Indian Congress. The time has come for New Delhi to intervene in the matter. When Malaysia became an independent nation, a large number of Indian-origin people could be seen occupying top posts in the government. But today very few hold senior positions. There is need for an independent enquiry to find out the truth.
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Every politician, when he leaves office, ought to go straight to jail and serve his time. — American folk saying
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Indo-Pak peace process
India
and Pakistan are all set to resume their stalled dialogue after a near-freeze of several months with External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna announcing that “a solid foundation” has been laid for a “sustained engagement.” Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao met her Pakistani counterpart in Thimpu and charted a course for the resumption of dialogue on all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, with the aim of completing the talks within the next three months. The ground has been laid for the visit of the Pakistani Foreign Minister to New Delhi in July. These are clearly signs that the two South Asian neighbours are seeking ways and means to engage with each other. The US has been pushing India to talk to Pakistan for some time now in an attempt to make Islamabad a more active partner in its Afghan war. India, too, is recognising the diminishing returns of its no-talks-till-terror-ends policy. Islamabad also feels that with a renewed peace process with India, it will be able to marginalise the extremist groups within. The issue is whether this will be enough to deliver a substantive outcome. And it is here that both sides need to recognise the real challenges that have prevented a real India-Pakistan rapprochement so far. Like any other state in the international system, Pakistan has also tried to preserve and enhance its security vis-à-vis its much stronger regional rival, India. The two states have been in a perpetual state of security dilemma ever since their independence in 1947. Given India’s enormous economic, military and geographical advantages, Pakistan has relied on non-conventional means to limit India’s influence and power. It pursued nuclear weapons in order to prevent India from using its overwhelming conventional military superiority, thereby levelling the playing field. Under the nuclear umbrella, Pakistan has used terrorism as a major instrument of its foreign policy, especially in Jammu and Kashmir which Pakistan has coveted since 1947. Despite recent attempts by India and Pakistan to patch up their differences, nothing much has changed insofar as the above narrative is concerned. Significant sections of Pakistani military and intelligence services continue to see themselves in a permanent state of conflict with India and have little incentive to moderate their behaviour as a continuing conflict with India is the raison d’etre of their pre-eminent position in the Pakistani society. At a time when Pakistan’s Islamic identity is under siege because of its cooperation with the US on the war on terror, the need to define itself in opposition to India remains even stronger. Militarily, Pakistan’s strategy of low-intensity conflict based on supporting terrorism can be seen as successful insofar as it has prevented India from achieving its full potential as a major military power. The Indo-Pak peace process also hinges on the ability of Pakistan’s political establishment to control terrorist groups from wreaking havoc in India. It is doubtful how much control the civilian government in Islamabad can exert, given that various terrorist outfits have vowed to continue their jihad in Kashmir. The Frankenstein monster that the Pakistani state had created to further its strategic objectives vis-à-vis its adversaries has now turned against it and threatens to devour any future attempts at Indo-Pak reconciliation. Moreover, there is little evidence of any significant Pakistani effort to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism such as communications, launching pads and training camps on its eastern border with India. Finally, and perhaps most important from the point of view of resolution of the Kashmir dispute, is the very different strategic goals India and Pakistan have in pursuing a peace-process. Pakistan has a revisionist agenda and would like to change the status quo in Kashmir while India would like the very opposite. India hopes that the negotiations with Pakistan would ratify the existing territorial status quo in Kashmir. At its foundation, these are irreconcilable differences and no confidence-building measures are likely to alter this situation. India’s premise largely has been that the peace process will persuade Pakistan to cease supporting and sending extremists into India and start building good neighbourly ties. Pakistan, in contrast, has viewed the process as a means to nudge India to make progress on Kashmir, a euphemism for Indian concessions. While Pakistan has a clear position on Kashmir and it shows little sign of budging from that, nobody really knows what India wants as it lacks clarity in its objectives and consistency in its plans. It is obvious that India would not give up its control over the Kashmir Valley. However, it remains unclear as to what is it that India is bringing to the negotiating table for Pakistan to take it seriously. And just as India has had difficulty thinking of what it would offer, Pakistan also has had a hard time articulating what it would be satisfied with, short of wresting Kashmir. And this is primarily a function of the lack of national political consensus on this issue in both states. In Pakistan, not only radical Islamic groups but also many mainstream political parties are against diluting Islamabad’s traditional hard-line on the Kashmir issue. In India, the Congress-led government will find it difficult to make any concessions as it would have to protect its flank from the right of the Indian political establishment. While there is a general political consensus in India on opening up trade routes and bus services, the threat of terrorism keeps all political parties on guard as no one would want to be held responsible for a terrorist attack that might come. Given the current predicament, it is difficult to be optimistic that the Indo-Pak peace process is poised to move beyond initial pleasantries, at least in the near
future. The writer teaches at King’s College, London.
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Mystique of simplicity It
took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” The first time I heard these famous words of Pablo Picasso I was visibly peeved. Goodness to doodle like a child — is that art? For didn’t one always identify art with sublime complexity of thoughts and expression. In fact, often we have been made to feel that the more indecipherable and highbrow a work of art is the higher it should rate in the lexicon. That simplicity can be art is a lesson that I learnt only after my years of association with the world of art and artists. That understanding art requires a visual skill has been reinforced time and again. Of course, the lobby that cares to demystify art has been equally strong. During his heyday, MF Husain, the great painter who has now chosen a life of exile, decided to paint in full public glare — perhaps that was his intention. Never mind that as one saw him start from a single dot to create a great work of art, one was more overawed by the magic of creation than anything else. Art to most of us remains an inscrutable mystery. Indeed, few of us believe that art can be understood without initiation. At a lecture an eminent art historian dwelt on how one has to be rasik to soak rasas of art. Indeed, there is little doubt that to admire and understand a work of art one needs to be doubly awakened and must possess heightened sensitivity. Nevertheless, soon after the highly engrossing lecture an art aficionado wondered aloud, “If this is true, then what explains the beauty of an art form when it reaches out as easily to a rickshaw-wallah as to a connoisseur? How come at the Hariballabh Sangeet Samellan Hari Prasad Chaurasia’s bansuri is equally savoured by an ordinary mortal as well as a scholar who can delineate the difference between various ragas.” The question haunted me and died a slow death. It seemed to crop up again when I found myself face to face with kathak legend Pandit Birju Maharaj. The maestro took immense pride and delight in sharing how he can make his highly complex tihaais comprehensible to even a five-year-old simply by taking similes from everyday life. And on stage as he executed what he called telephone tihaai taking a cue from how the telephone rings, he exemplified that what he said in an interview was no empty boast. The maestro can truly simplify his art without robbing it of purity or tradition. While he took more metaphors from mundane life, he reached out to one and all, clarifying his concepts in a lucid way. Yet what remained with me, and, I am sure, with most of his audiences, was a masterpiece. A small bit of nritta, of exquisite footwork where ghungroos seemed to be at his bidding that echoed silence (of all things). So eloquent and yet so profound was this encapsulation of shunya, the emptiness. And I found the answer to my query. Art is as much silence as reading between the lines, as much an inscrutable mystique as a self-evident and self-explanatory
phenomenon.
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Woman empowerment for the Muslim
community requires different tools. Their socio-economic indices vary
from the women of majority community. Yet, they aspire to join the
mainstream economic force. Hence, feminism for the women of this
community needs to be spelt with different semantics.
Ever
since Shah Bano debate of the late 1980s, a perception has emerged that Islam is unfair to women, and that there is an inherent theological sanction against gender equality. Recent controversy concerning burkha or hizaf in European nations has only perpetuated this perception about women's position in Islam at a global level. In a country like India, where women's position is generally unfavorable- Muslim women are seen as dual victims; firstly by such flawed interpretation of Islam- and secondly by the inherent system of oppressive Indian patriarchy. Seen in this context, it is important to de- contextualize various dimensions of Muslim- women's issues in modern India. New tools are required to advance the cause of modern feminism for Muslim women in India to expand its own variety of multi- culturalism.
Looking beyond stereotypes n Better education, higher income and healthcare facilities curb fertility, which is largely missing for the Muslim women. A rough extrapolation of the rate of population growth, using 2001 as base year would suggest that the population of Muslim women should be more than 70 million in 2011, which is somewhat close to the population of a major European country such as Britain or Germany. But comparison of the socio- economic conditions of Muslim women with the population of these European nations would naturally signal massive deprivation. On the other hand, debate on Muslim backwardness in the Post- Sachar India has been so focused on the general nature of deprivation of Muslim community that the issues of Muslim women and its particular nature seem to be entirely slighted. On the other hand, the debate on the position of Women in Islam has become quite polemical and politically charged. It is a favourite stick employed by the Hindu fundamentalists and feminists for quite opposing reasons. Shah Bano case and the debate on Uniform Civil Code, which is not welcomed by Islamic bodies, are used by the Hindu fundamentalists to create an argument of Muslim disloyalty towards the country and its Constitution. Feminists, on the other hand point out gender inequality as normatively a wrong issue to be embraced in modern times. They accuse it to be based on Islamic preaching. Some scholars, such as Asghar Ali Engineer, have been arguing that there are some clergy who deliberately mis-interpret Islam and its tenets regarding women; their rights and liberty in order to advance their vested interests.
Lost in the din When one looks at the trends in sex ratio, Muslim girls are given better chances of survival. The difference may not be dramatic, but is noticeable for the fact that majority of Muslim women are not exposed to gender sensitisation drive. For every 1000 males, in 2001, Muslim females were 936 as opposed to all India sex ratio of 933. In 1991, Muslim females were 930 as opposed to 927 for all India sex ratio. In some states such as Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh- data suggests that sex ratio for Muslims is much better compared to all India population.
Breaking myths about high fertility According to some data used in Sachar Report collected in 1998-99, 49% of Hindus use contraceptives, while 37 % of Muslims use at all India level. The data varies from state to state in this case also, dispelling the notion that Muslim community behaves as a unified block. In some states the differences between fertility of Hindu couples and Muslim couples is really high, such as in Assam 49 % of Hindu couples as against 34 % Muslim couples use contraceptives, in Rajasthan, 42 % of Hindu couples as against 25 % Muslim couples, in Kerala, 72% of Hindu couples as opposed to 48 % of Muslim couples use contraceptives. There are other states such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and a few other states where the difference between Hindu and Muslim contraceptive users is rather low. For instance, in Tamil Nadu- only 52% of Hindu couples use contraceptives as opposed to 49% of Muslim couples. Surprisingly, in Madhya Pradesh including Chhattisgarh where 44% Hindu couples use contraceptives against 46 % of Muslim couples, is against the general trend. Largely, high rates of fertility among Muslims are due to lack of information and non- affordable health- care facilities.
The publication of Sachar- Report
(2006) has revealed a very disturbing picture of the Muslim backwardness- mainly under-representation of Muslims in various sectors of the Indian economy. When the entire community is backward, it seems natural to anticipate that the women of the community would be worse. The Committee apparently had five members and a Member- Secretary in addition to its Chairperson, Justice Rajinder Sachar. None of its five members was a woman. Would that imply that no Muslim woman was worth the job? There is a pool of women of accomplishment from the community to choose from. The decision not to include a woman member seems to be a deliberate one, which reflects somewhat unfavorable attitude towards women by the Sachar Committee. However- the committee sought to make up for it by holding consultations with some women experts and hiring women consultants. The 401 page report has a text of around 263 pages plus appendix containing various tables for the remaining part. The Report does make profound observations about the conditions of the women. In a nutshell, it found that Muslim women are overwhelmingly self- employed, particularly engaged in home- based work. Sewing, embroidery, zari work, chikan work, readymade garments, agarbatti rolling, beedi rolling, are some of the occupations a majority of Muslim women opt for. Low income, poor work conditions, absence of toilet, crèche facilities, lack of social security benefits like health insurance and the absence of bargaining power characterise general nature of their work- profile. The Report also noted that the distinct pattern of Muslim women's employment in home- based work is partly due to discrimination received in formal employment. It is due to the vicious cycle of poverty, lack of education and technical skills leading to low- skilled, low- income route, that leads back to poverty. Muslim women are unable to bargain for better work conditions because much of the work they do is sub- contracted. The restriction of mobility ( based on social and cultural factors) restricts their employment opportunities and wages. They do not have independent access to credit facilities, opportunities for skill up- gradation, or access to markets. By the year 2006, when the report was submitted-India had already pursued globalisation for close to 15 years or so. Given the general impression that globalisation has generated employment and wealth- it needs to be noted that it has not worked for Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular. Recurrent incidents of ethnic violence since India's independence have contributed to the ghettoisation of the community, which has a particular consequence for women upliftment. The ghettoisation of poor Muslims has led to the seclusion of home- based female workers. Another important factor of state bias is reflected in the case of minimal participation of Muslim women in the government sponsored micro- finance programmes such as Self- Help Groups(SGHs), Watershed Programmes and Panchyati Raj. The Sachar Report has recommended that the government should give direct contract to Muslim women for jobs such as preparation of school uniforms. Muslims- especially women, have virtually no access to government schemes, and lack experience in getting loans from Jawahar Rozgaar Yojana for Below Poverty Line( BPL) beneficiaries. Muslims are often not able to secure reservation benefits available to OBCs as the officials do not give them the required caste certificates. Many eligible Muslim OBCs were not included in the official list resulting in denial of several benefits to the community. Another important dimension of the Muslim women debate centres around their health. According to Sachar Report, the issue is directly connected to poverty and absence of basic services like clean drinking water and sanitation- leading to malnutrition, anemia, and a variety of diseases and poor life expectancy. In conflict- prone areas, there is a strong evidence of psychological problems, including stress, depression, and post- traumatic disorders. For decades, a perception has prevailed among some right- wing groups that Muslims do not want to practice family planning- some even accuse the community of having the desire to over- populate India so that India becomes a Muslim majority country. This argument has a great propagandistic value. Population control programmes and knowledge of contraceptives do not reach Muslim women effectively as the awareness campaign is not designed keeping the community's sensibility in mind. Thus, high rate of fertility among Muslims is partly due to lack of information and non- affordable health-care facilities. Though, the report also mentions "substantial demand from the community for fertility regulation and for modern contraceptives," which is also reaffirmed by the fact that over 20 million Muslim couples are already using contraceptives. But, women need to have more say in making these choices, which requires special programmes designed to suit the community's sensibility. In conclusion, there are multiple factors that contribute to the prevailing disturbing portrait of Muslim women in India. In a way, it is part of the general story of the Indian woman. Added to it, community specific factors perpetuate their stereotyping and an almost negligible representation in the growing economy of the country. There are also state biases, and flawed understanding of the community's issues that further complicates the debate. What is now needed is a multi- farious approach at societal, state, and community level in order to address issues of dignity and equality of Muslim women, without which Indian democracy cannot find fuller expressions. (The author is a faculty at the Centre for Minorities Studies,
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)
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Corrections and clarifications n
The caption of the photo on Page 4 of the February 28 issue entitled “Raring to go” has its tenses mixed up. It should have said “The Guru Nanak Stadium came alive with action as rehearsals were on for the grand inauguration….” Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. Raj Chengappa
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