Tag: Partition of India

Train to Pakistan

March 20, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
Khushwant Singh (2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) is no more. He was born in (pre-partition) Pakistan and always retained his fondness and love for his native land. His great novel was the “Train to Pakistan” which elaborated on the injustices (faced by common people) of that time. He will be missed.

Singh,
who was a Member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986, was awarded with the
Padma Bhushan in 1974 but returned the decoration in 1984 in protest
against the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by the Indian
Army. He is survived by son Rahul and daughter Mala. 

It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs
and Muslims of Mano Majra, a village on the border of India and
Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion falls
upon Juggut Singh, the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim
girl. When a train arrives, carrying the bodies of dead Sikhs, the
village is transformed into a battlefield, and neither the magistrate
nor the police are able to stem the rising tide of violence. Amidst
conflicting loyalties, it is left to Juggut Singh to redeem himself and
reclaim peace for his village.

regards

Trapped at the border of impulse and conscience

March 16, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
hat sort of a Pakistan was this that had entered their village like some maddened bull, trampling humanity under its hooves and turning everything upside down?” wonders an anguished man in Savage Harvest: Stories of Partition by Mohinder Singh Sarna (1923-2001), translated from Punjabi and introduced by his son and diplomat, Navtej Sarna. On both sides of the new western border between India and Pakistan, an orgy of violence had broken out in towns and villages. It was Hindus and Sikhs vs. Muslims, with both sides pillaging, raping, and killing, leaving a million dead, 12-18 million refugees, and a still-poisoned well of politics in the region.
Over the decades, Partition has produced many popular and critical narratives: its causes, villains, avoidable mistakes, its defining features and aftermath. While such narratives can never be immune from subjective perspective, much of it — despite notable work from scholars like Gurharpal Singh, Ian Talbot, Urvashi Butalia, Perry Anderson, Gyanendra Pandey, and Jan Breman — remains mired in crude nationalistic politics, taboos, and mythologies of India, Pakistan, and Great Britain.
In 2011 for instance, when Jaswant Singh, former defense minister of India and a senior member of BJP, wrote a book in which he blamed Nehru more than Jinnah for Partition and even praised many aspects of Jinnah’s personality, the BJP expelled him from the party and banned his book in Gujarat. This happened despite the fact that Singh was articulating an increasingly common view among scholars. Recent scholarship has also shown that a lot of Partition violence, such as that of Rawalpindi massacres, attacks on refugee trains and foot convoys, and ethnic cleansing of villages, was carefully planned and executed — with ample collusion of state agents — by extremist groups competing for political power. This is why the violence of Partition was so much more brutal and genocidal than the violence of “mere” communal riots. Such groups included Muslim para-militaries, Hindu volunteers of the RSS, and Sikh jathas and princely rulers. In other words, much of Partition violence in Punjab did not erupt “spontaneously” among mobs and hotheads, an idea that still rules the popular imagination.
http://www.sunday-guardian.com/bookbeat/savage-harvest-stories-of-partition#.UyWQ7_l2lA8.twitter

Tariq Ali recommends Partition # 3

March 14, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
18 September 2014. That is the day when the “Great” (may) disappear from Great Britain.

Tariq Ali is not fond of the “White Commonwealth” model to save the world. In his opinion it is an “union of rogues.” Also “Britain is a vassal state” and should be dismembered.

Having lived through two SAsian partitions already – no comments on the merits of those two (why not?), which many people in Britain will be familiar with-  Mr Ali is now excited and enthusiastic about the third one that is forthcoming.

In doing so he soft-pedals the brutality of the Scots during the wars and their enthusiastic participation in colonial rule. Another sleight of hand is to divide the Scottish population into elites (who were weak and could not resist their vile English overlords) and sub-alterns (who were poor and subjugated). With all due respect this is nonsense on stilts. When a country is a super power the sub-alterns benefit hugely as well.

If Scots were not parochial and actually liberal minded, they would be looking for greater integration (into the EU) and not less (away from Britain). They want to have their cake and eat it too (which is to be fair true for all of us). But that may not yet happen. They may lose the sterling, North Sea oil and gas revenue is trending down, and membership in NATO and EU is not guaranteed.

Once more, Scottish independence will be the final nail in the empire story. Watching the Scots leave, Northern Ireland and Wales are likely to leave as well. England by itself should deserve to lose its UN veto (also France, and one veto awarded to the EU). 

We have a suspicion that Tariq Ali will be a very happy man if all this comes to pass. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.
…..


Independence is the only way Scotland can realise its full political and
cultural potential in the 21st century. 

This is not always the case when new
states are born – the break-up of Yugoslavia is sometimes cited, and with good
reason, to demonstrate the opposite. But Yugoslavia was wrecked by the IMF with
disastrous consequences: ultra-nationalism, civil war and ethnic cleansings at
home exacerbated by a German intervention to divide the country, followed by the
Nato bombing. A better analogy for Scotland is Norway’s peaceful and
collaborative secession from Sweden in 1905.

Scotland was tricked into the 1707 union with England, sold down the river
by what Robert Burns called its “Parcel o’ Rogues”: What
force or guile could not subdue, through many warlike ages / Is wrought now by
a coward few / for hireling traitor’s wages / The English steel we could disdain
/ secure in valour’s station / But English gold has been our bane / Such a
parcel o’ rogues in a nation.

Later Walter Scott enlarged on this theme: “It may be doubted whether
the descendants of the noble lords … who accepted this gratification would be
more shocked at the general fact of their ancestors being corrupted or
scandalized at the paltry amount of the bribe.”

The weakness in traditional Scottish nationalism lay in its own inability to
grasp that identity could not be the only factor in the march to independence.
As the late Stephen
Maxwell, Tom
Nairn and other Scottish intellectuals have pointed out, the union was a
compact between the English bourgeoisie and a weak and desperate Scottish
elite. The latter obtained entry into English markets and, later, to its
colonies in North America and Asia. Five of the British viceroys who ruled India were members of the Scottish
gentry. Scottish administrators were a cornerstone of the imperial
bureaucracies in Asia and Africa.

For the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, the
Scottish elites benefited greatly, the subaltern layers less so. (As a
proportion of population, Scottish deaths exceeded English ones in the
inter-imperialist war of 1914-18.) There were other downsides as well. Scotland’s
political identity was destroyed, and a huge Scottish emigration to North
America followed the brutal Highland clearances. These included every layer of
Scottish society, not just the remnants of the defeated clans. The reasons were
not only economic. Many Scots left a country occupied by redcoats.

Two processes combined to reawaken Scotland. The depression of the 30s left
a deep mark on the country, and the end of empire that followed a decade later
after another war created the basis for new thinking. Until 1945 the Labour party,
born in Scotland, had been pledged to Scottish home rule. Clement
Attlee’s reforms, it was thought, made the idea redundant, and certainly
few in Scotland thought otherwise. But the emergence of a new nationalism was
the result of a democratic deficit.

The bulk of Scotland voted against Margaret Thatcher, and her brutal dismantling
of the 1945 compact shook the union’s foundations. When Tony Blair followed
suit, belittling the Scottish parliament as little more than a local council,
the haemorrhaging of Labour votes began. The real tartan Tories in the Scottish
parliament today are the visionless careerists of New Labour, incapable of
producing a leader with even one-fifth of the qualities that distinguished the
late Donald Dewar. Small wonder that support for independence is strongest
among working people.

The notion that an independent Scotland will be parochial is risible. The
“internationalism” of New Labour and its coalition lookalikes
essentially means subordinating the entire British state to the interests of
the US. They have made Britain a vassal state: on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the
gathering of intelligence. An independent Scotland could be far more
internationalist and would benefit a great deal from links to both Scandinavia
and states in other continents.

A campaign of fear, based on dodgy statistics, is under way, with the failed
model of anglo-globalisation presented as the only model. Scotland’s
sovereignty, honour and dignity are within its grasp for the first time since
1707. It would be a dark day indeed if the parcel o’ rogues triumphed again.

regards

A giant leap back (for woman kind)

March 12, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
This is a (admittedly narrow) look at certain aspects of civil laws currently in vogue in India and in Pakistan as it impacts on marriage in discriminatory ways.

In India personal laws concerning muslims are mostly regressive. Thus you have the ridiculous spectacle of a (hindu) deputy chief minister of Haryana converting to Islam in order to get married for the second time to a (hindu) lady who also converted for this purpose and then subsequently dumping her (talaq decree via SMS) to go back to his first wife, which led to the lady committing suicide. This is just wrong on so many levels that it simply makes my blood boil.

How about Pakistan? My impression is (based on limited knowledge) that Pakistani laws are far more protective of women’s rights – in this case for muslims, but not for christians who have to prove adultery by spouse in order to win a divorce.

All of this may fit into a pattern of non-interference in minority affairs but that claim is again….simply ridiculous. Both India and Pakistani society would not think twice before harming minorities, killing people and destroying property, but personal laws are somehow a red line? If we are that concerned about minorities, India should pass the communal violence bill and Pakistan should withdraw the blasphemy law.

Two examples where Pak laws are clearly superior- (a) the minimum age of marriage (for women) is sixteen, which is not defined by puberty [ref. wiki], and (b) if men want to marry a second time they have to take permission from the first wife [ref. article below].

That was then, the future however looks pretty bleak due to the pronouncements by the Council of Islamic Ideology that current marriage rules are not in compliance with Sharia. All the carefully thought out compromises for the original bill (not to mention international obligations on child marriage) will now be discarded on the say so of the CII. 

The PPP human rights cell has raised its voice in opposition (full credit to them) and the comments section is almost uniformly dismissive of what the CII is proposing. It restores one’s faith in humanity for a few nano-seconds before you realize that PPP is now a minor regional party and the DAWN readership is probably not representative of mainstream thought in Pakistan today. Thus game, set and match for Maulana Sheerani. It is indeed a proud day for him and he will be savoring a (not so) hard-earned victory.
…. 
The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) concluded its 191th
meeting, here Tuesday with the ruling that the laws related to minimum
age of marriage were un-Islamic and that children of any age could get
married if they attain puberty.

At the conclusion of two day meeting, Chairman CII Maulana Muhammad
Khan Sheerani noted that the laws related to marriage too were unfair
and there cannot be any age of marriage.  

However, he explained that there were two segments of marriage – nikah and ruksati, while nikah could be performed at any age.“Even
the minors can have nikah but that has to be executed by the
guardians,” chairman CII said adding, “But ruksti could be executed only
after attaining the age of puberty.”

He said that the age of
puberty varies from individuals to individuals and it was the
responsibility of guardians to have ruksati soon the child attains the
age of puberty. “The laws limiting the age for both the segments of marriage are unIslamic and needed to be rectified,” he added.

The officials were asked if the
international conventions signed by Pakistan related to child marriage
would be violated after this ruling by CII. Responding to the
query the official said that the international conventions cannot be in
contradiction to the constitution of the country or Islam and if they
were, those particular clauses would not apply on Pakistan.

The CII had on earlier day suggested the government to change Muslim marriage laws as it required Muslim male to seek permission from the previous wife or wives for another marriage.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) human rights cell has expressed concern over the CII rulings. “Why
is Council concerned with men’s four marriages and why have they done
nothing to ensure that women get their property as enshrined in Islamic
Law? Or why have they failed to stop practices such as vani, swara and
karo kari? Or stop rape, and acid crimes against women?” asked Dr Nafisa
Shah, coordinator PPP’s human rights cell.  

“Unfortunately Islam
has been misinterpreted over a period of time by a mindset and a
particular school of thought. Islam and modernism are compatible
provided progressive scholars interpret the religion,” she added. The
PPP human rights cell has called upon the government to include
progressive Islamic scholars in the council so that women’s rights and
the rights of all are protected.

regards

The (new) Kerala Kings

March 11, 2014 3 Comments filed under Archived Authors
The prelude: When Pakistan was born one man was requested to reflect on the whole deal and how it specifically helps or hurts muslims. He memorably noted that muslims will be winners everywhere in South Asia, as kings in Pakistan and (permanent) king-makers in India.

To an (admittedly biased) outsider, it appears (perhaps incorrectly) that Pakistan has not quite lived up to the vision of its founders (promised land for all SAsian muslims). What seems to have happened is that the definition of a (righteous) Muslim has kept on changing (and shrinking). So it was that over time Ahmadis, Bengalis, Shias, Balochistanis, miscellaneous tribals et al. have come to be defined as (de facto, de jure) non-muslims (by the state and/or by powerful non-state actors) and as such deemed non-eligible to be inhabitants of an (Sunni) Islamic state.

How about India? Muslims have been a reliable and powerful vote bank, first for the Congress and then for local caste-first parties led by (Mullah) Mulayam Yadav and Lalu Yadav. It should be noted that Mulayam Yadav came to power in UP specifically due to the red-card issued by muslims against the Congress for having primary responsibility (as they saw it) for the c.1992 state-sponsored act(s) of terror (SSAT). Even now as we have people shouting from roof-tops about how BJP is the devil incarnate, they forget that it was Rajiv Gandhi (who unlocked the Ram Mandir gates) and Narasimha Rao (who was closeted in a puja ceremony during the entire episode) who were the principals in charge. Thing is the muslims knew exactly what the Congress was doing, and they will (justifiably) never forgive, nor forget.  

A bit of elaboration as to why R.G. and N.R. acted in such a sinister manner. Briefly, Rajiv wanted to cancel out the favor he did to the mullahs by terrorizing an indigent (muslim) widow, and Rao was playing a long game- he calculated that BJP’s actions would cause them to be finished politically. It is indeed sweet justice that Congress will NEVER come to power in UP again (though this does not help the riot victims then and now). This should also serve as a warning to those (liberal) enthusiasts about the pitfalls of encouraging backwardness (and discouraging women) through unfair application of personal civil codes.

The above approach is referred to as the soft Hindutva, it is perhaps more appropriate to see it as a blatantly opportunistic approach for voting gain by dividing communities. The British were past masters at this game and Congress as the inheritor has (unfortunately) learned the lessons too well.

With all that said and as India has moved into the 21st century, Jinnah’s prophecy does not seem to hold true any more. India is a Shudra nation now and forever. Over-time the disparate Shudra blocks are likely to team up at a pan India level (just like royalty in Europe). Unless India switches over to some version of proportional representation (from the present first-past-the-post format), the Shudras will remain the permanent kings of India and the king-maker profession will be no more.  

In Kerala the new royal caste has a name. They are the Ezhavas.

The point: The political map in Kerala is well settled and has been for some time. There is the Ezhava-controlled CPI and CPI(M), the Christian controlled Kerala Congress, and the Muslim controlled Muslim League.  Is there a path for the BJP to unsettle this settled fact? As noted before here on BP, the BJP can rise only at the expense of the Left. How likely is that?

 The Left is splintering slowly but its decline (unlike in Bengal) is still far off. The BJP got 10% (+) vote in 2004 (but no seats) so it will be important to see what is the Modi effect, if any (still unlikely to win).
….
The Congress in Kerala will admit
the Revolutionary Socialist Party as a new ally of the United Democratic
Front (UDF) for the Lok Sabha polls. The RSP had snapped its
34-year-long ties with CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) over
denial of Kollam seat to contest in the Lok Sabha polls. RSP, which has two MLAs, would help the ruling Congress increase its
numbers in the Legislative Assembly, but the Congress will have to cede
Kollam seat…. to the RSP.



The UDF has three other Left rebel groups Communist Marxist Party
(CMP), Janathipathya Samrakshana Samithi and RSP(B), which has announced
plans to merge with RSP.
…………
At the end of the day it will be the Ezhavas that will determine if the BJP has any chance and the saffrons know this and are pulling out all the stops to make it happen.

……………
Kerala has always had a saffron bone. RSS
has the most number of shakhas in India in Kerala—4,000. 

In the 2011
assembly elections, BJP had a vote share of 6.03% but it could not win a
seat. But Muslim League with 7.92% vote share won 20 seats and Kerala
Congress (Mani) won nine seats with 4.9% vote share. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, BJP had a better vote share — 6.31%,
but could not win any seat. In 2004 despite having its highest vote
share — 10.39% — the party failed to win any seat.

In Kerala, the saffron project has always been to wean away the
powerful Ezhava community from CPM’s fold. Ezhavas, who belong to other
backward class (OBC) in Kerala, is the second largest identity group in
the state (22.91%), behind Muslims who constitute 24.7% of the
population. So far, the project has not succeeded. With CPM and CPI
largely being Ezhava parties, BJP should try harder. 

It would not be
ignored that Modi went to Sivagiri mutt in Varkala to attend Sree
Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sangham meeting in 2013. The state BJP has
succeeded in wooing Vellappally Natesan, president of SNDP Yogam.
Vellapally has endorsed Modi for PM but he is far from a political
influencer in Kerala.

BJP is also wooing dalits (18.82%) with Modi addressing a gathering
of Pulaya Maha Sabha in Kochi on February 9. Dalits, so far, have
rallied behind CPM and Congress.

Far more interesting is BJP’s agenda to get cosy with the Church. Two
bishops of the influential Syrian Orthodox church had met Modi in Kochi
and welcomed Modi becoming the PM. BJP is trying to exploit the
Jacobite-Orthodox schism in Kerala. The Catholic Church, too, is hedging
its bets over the delayed notification on Dr Kastrirangan panel
recommendations but it is unlikely that it will desert Sonia Gandhi,
Oommen Chandy and UDF, despite the grand posturing of  Kerala Congress.

regards

The (unsung) mutiny (1946)

March 4, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
A 94 year old recounts his vivid memories of those momentous events 68 years ago when the soldiers raised by the British to keep their own countrymen in chains finally revolted and (as the British saw it) the empire game was suddenly up. As a shameful and terrible consequence the mutineers were never employed by either Indian or Pakistan Navy. As they say, a good act never goes unpunished.

It’s difficult to recall a day 68 years ago when you are 94. But the
RIN mutiny, which many believe was the last nail in the Raj’s coffin,
wasn’t just any other day. And I happened to be a proximate eyewitness
to this momentous event. 

On February 18, 1946, ratings at the HMIS
Talwar, a shore establishment for signals training, went on strike,
protesting against the inedible meals and searing insults to which they
were regularly subjected. The revolt spread like wildfire. Some
mutineers took up arms; others took to the streets of Bombay. Ratings
famously pulled down the Union Jack on rebel ships, replacing it with
flags of the Congress, the Muslim League and the Communist Party of
India.



Unlike the sepoys of 1857, who were a heterogeneous group, the RIN
ratings were by and large educated, well-trained and well-armed. The
British adm­i­nis­tration was not so much perturbed by the peaceful
civil disobedience movement (satyagraha) launched by Maha­tma Gan­dhi as
by the spectre of an insur­rection in the modern Indian armed forces,
which they had themselves trained.

Later that evening, I went to Apollo Bunder—the Gateway of India.
Everything was quiet. Thereafter, I was taken by some friends to the
flat of one of the activist supporters of the mutiny. I learnt that the
morning’s event I witnessed was but a small part of a well-orchestrated
chain of strikes and demonstrations. No wonder the British government
was rattled.  

By February 22, the mutiny had spread to naval units across
the country. Some 20,000 sailors, 20 offshore establishments and over
70 ships are believed to have been involved. That British prime minister
Clement Attlee announced the Cabinet Mission to India just a day after
the mutiny erupted is testimony to the mutiny’s perceived threat.



The revolt was as spectacular as it was short-lived. Nei­ther the
Congress nor the Muslim League supported it; the strike committee
surrendered after talks with Vallabhbhai Patel. Hundreds of mutineers
were jailed or dismissed, never to be reabsorbed by the armed forces of
independent India or Pakistan. Never were the ratings celebrated as
heroes.



Within a year and a half of that day, India became free and the RIN
became the Indian navy. On the day of independence, I was with my
wife-to-be on a little hillock called Antop Hill. Suddenly, the sky lit
up with fireworks and I knew we had become free. I owned a small car, a
dkw two-seater. It had seen many owners, and wouldn’t start without
pushing. That day, I had kept it on the slope of the hill so it would
start easily. My wife and I jumped into the car, which dutifully rolled
down the hill. Jubilant, we drove to Marine Drive and joined the stream
of cars going to the secretariat. 

regards

The victims of partition(s)

February 27, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors
…the (in)fighting never stops as the poison re-circulates in perpetuity…. minority communities will bear the greater burden everywhere…the lines separating the minority from the majority are very thin and are being continuously re-defined (majority oppressor class today, minority oppressed class tomorrow). Finally, it would appear that the separating and dividing exercise will continue until we are all in our box of one- each one of us a minority fighting against the other (my brother, cousin, friend,…etc.)


Unidentified gunmen shot dead four persons, including a prominent India-born Shia scholar, in this Pakistani port city on Thursday in target killings. Four gunmen opened fire on an auto-rickshaw in which Allama Taqi Hadi Naqvi was traveling.
Naqvi succumbed to his wounds in hospital, police official Imran Shaukat said.

Renowned within academic circles, Naqvi was born in Moradabad district
of India’s Uttar Pradesh state and moved to Pakistan with his family
after independence.

Three other persons, including the
administrator of a madrassa and his son, were shot dead by gunmen in
separate incidents in the city.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               regards

The Act of Killing

February 7, 2014 No Comments filed under Archived Authors

A must see documentary.
I have not seen it. I only saw the trailer (I have a weak stomach for massacres) but I have heard about it in detail from a friend who saw it and I have read about the movie as well as the massacres themselves.
Humans. What a frigging species.

We did our share of killing in 1947 and then in Bengal in 1971, but the way these Indonesians have not just honored the killers (which we did too, in many cases) but openly boast about their work..that does not seem to be our way (yet).
Somehow I always have the feeling that South-East Asian societies (Burma to Indonesia) are one step ahead of mother India in the mass-killing business, but maybe I am just prejudiced. I have certainly not done the math…

Brown Pundits