Saffronisation of India

CounterPunch

Eighteen months after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party won a decisive victory over the Congress-led government, India confronts one of the most critical periods in its history since independence from Britain in 1947. The omens are not pleasant and remind us of a previous domestic crisis in the mid-1970s, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed emergency rule in the midst of a popular revolt against her government. Twenty months after, she decided to call a general election in the hope of an easy victory. She thought the people’s free spirit had been tamed. Had she won, sweeping changes made during the emergency period would have become permanent and India would have changed for ever.

When the election came in March 1977, Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party suffered a humiliating defeat and she lost her own parliamentary seat. Although she returned to power following a short-lived coalition government, a victim of infighting and contradictions, Congress had been taught a lesson. Draconian measures like forced mass sterilisation of the emergency era were abandoned, never to be repeated.

Recent events since the BJP’s victory in May 2014 indicate that India faces another critical period which could determine the future character of the country. Many fear that if the current trends continue, individual freedom will be in peril, and India will be an intolerant society – a Hindu theocracy. In an ominous development, veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi openly advocated “saffronisation” of India’s education system, referring to a Hindu agenda based on mythology to counter scientific methods of education. His vision is the mirror image of Talibanisation and Islamic fundamentalism across India’s border in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

A number of developments have heightened fears that plurality and tolerance are under threat in India. Leaders of fringe groups close to the BJP have claimed that India’s 80 per cent Hindu population is threatened by the Muslim minority that constitutes a little more than 15 per cent of the country’s 1.2 billion people. Astonishing claims are made that the Muslims, as a group described by radical Hindus as “minorities” who have been “appeased” under previous governments make up one third of India’s population; that their numbers are growing rapidly; and that if the trend is not reversed soon Muslims will own both women and wealth of Hindus.

Radical groups like the World Hindu Council, its women’s wing and the World Hindu Defence Organisation have found that conditions are right for their brazen propaganda. Volunteers go round telling people who care to listen that before the advent of Islam and Christianity the entire world was Hindu; that it was time to re-establish the pre-eminence of Hindus worldwide; that a start had to be made in India now.

Preachers of hate have declared that they will not rest until India is a hundred per cent Hindu country – eighty per cent is not enough. Their drive has taken several forms. In ceremonies described as “home coming”, underprivileged Muslims are being converted to Hinduism, only to be forgotten. Conversion ceremonies are supposed to be voluntary, but in reality direct and indirect pressure and enticement play a significant role. Less publicised are instances in which Hindu converts have reverted to Islam again.

Events involving violence, even murder, are more menacing. One of the most shocking was the lynching of a 50-year-old Muslim man by a fanatical Hindu crowd in the north Indian town of Dadri. Rumours, outright lies and conspiracy theories abound. One version of events said that the killing took place after rumours that the victim named Akhlaq had eaten beef. Another version claimed that the man was killed because one of his sons had a secret affair with a Hindu girl. The loyalties of Muslims are openly questioned. For the record, Akhlaq’s other son serves in the Indian Air Force and, according to some newspapers, the son joined the armed forces because his father wanted him to.

Imposition of ban on the sale of meat and its availability in restaurants during Hindu religious festivals has triggered a nationwide controversy. Militant Hindu supporters of the BJP and vigilantes are engaged in a campaign of intimidation to ensure restrictions on eating meat. States such as Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir governed by coalitions including the BJP have tried the measure.

A panel of High Court judges in Kashmir went so far as to invoke a 1930s edict of the state’s Hindu ruler banning cow meat – edict first introduced before India’s independence from Britain. Indian Muslims are an obvious target of north India’s Hindu zealots, whose obsessions ignore the fact that fellow Hindus in southern and other parts of the country do eat cow and buffalo meat. The Supreme Court of India finally ruled the banning as unconstitutional, because it violates the freedom to choose what to eat. The country’s highest court may have said the last word, but religious fanatics will not desist from intimidation. Unfortunately, the enforcement of law depends on the government’s willingness to use its authority and leadership, both in short supply in the current climate.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, police in the capital, Delhi, raided an official building belonging to the southern state of Kerala after someone complained that beef was on the menu in the restaurant of Kerala House. It was, in fact buffalo meat, which is widely consumed in Kerala state. Cow slaughter is also legal there and state law applies in the state house in Delhi.

The Kerala state government was furious. India’s home minister Rajnath Singh issued an ambiguous statement telling Delhi police to be “more careful in the future”. Buffalo curry was back on the menu in Kerala House.

Splits in Indian society are deepening. Secular intellectuals are so alienated that dozens of renowned Indian writers, artists and film makers have returned their awards. The response from the governing BJP and its affiliates is to demonise them as pseudo secularists and unpatriotic Indians who are damaging the nation’s image abroad. Particularly disturbing is the drive to revise textbooks according to Hindu mythology. In the state of Rajasthan, for example, one of the many changes in textbooks of the secondary education board involves the removal of a chapter on Nelson Mandela, to be replaced with a long chapter entitled “Tribals in Rajasthan”.

A presentation at the Indian Science Congress in January this year claimed that the Wright brothers did not build the first plane, flown for the first time in 1903. According to the claim, that invention goes back 7000 years and recorded in the ancient Hindu text “Rigveda”, more than 3000 years ago. The ancient mythological aircraft was build by a sage, Maharishi Bharadwaj, had “40 small engines and a flexible exhaust system which a modern aviation cannot even approach”. India’s environment minister and BJP spokesman, Prakash Javadekar, put his official stamp of approval on the claim, asserting that ancient Indian science was based on “experience and logic”, and that “wisdom must be recognised”.

With such changes in the offing, what in the world is the future of scientists, engineers, doctors and historians from India?

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Remembering Ali Mazrui (1933–2014)

Richard Falk

One of the infrequently mentioned rewards of academic life is the opportunity for friendship with extraordinary persons, and no one I have known, better exemplifies the human potential to please mind, body, heart, and soul of others than Ali Mazrui. His death in October of this year was an occasion for widespread mourning but also of rejoicing through recalling the satisfaction of having had the benefit of Ali’s warmth and friendship over such a long span of years. If memory serves, as it rarely does these days, we met during his period of academic residence at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda toward the end of the 1960s. It was an early gathering of participants in the World Order Models Project (WOMP). Ali presided over the meeting in his triple role as African director of WOMP, Dean of the Makerere’s Faculty of Social Science, and Chair of its Political Science Department. He was already at that early age a prominent intellectual, internationally known as an outspoken champion of human rights and freedom of expression in the authoritarian atmosphere of Uganda. This situation would soon worsen when the murderous Idi Amin took over the government, making life impossible for Ali and forcing his departure from Uganda. As is evident to all who knew Ali, he never left in spirit or engagement the Africa whose people and culture he loved with his whole being.

As a speaker and thinker Ali was in a select class of his own. I remember encountering him at an African Studies Association a few later. He calmly told me that he was pressed for time because he was on the program eight separate times! Only Ali could have claimed such an absurdity without provoking a bemused smile, but Ali had so much to say that was valuable about so many topics that it made sense that numerous colleagues would implore him to join in their efforts. His speaking feats became legendary, especially in Africa, where heads of state invited him to speak on special occasions to crowds of thousands. Throughout his career Ali was honored and acknowledged with many awards, honorary degrees, and leadership positions in professional associations.

The reverse side of Ali’s virtuoso performance ethos was illustrated by a 1970s event in Montreal at McGill University. It was billed as a public meeting to exhibit the WOMP approach on global issues, and Ali was to be the featured speaker. We had a dinner prior to the event hosted by university dignitaries in a private dining room, and then walked to the nearby auditorium. To our astonishment and the dismay of the local conveners, the huge arena was completely empty. It turned out that the Canadian organizers of the event had completely forgotten to advertise the lecture, and we few at the dinner were the only ones present. It is still vivid in my mind that an undismayed Ali confronted the cavernous emptiness with dauntless composure, delivering his talk with accompanying flourishes as if he were addressing a hall filled with hundreds of attentive and adoring listeners.

I felt that Ali drew strength on that occasion, as in other challenging situations, from his noble Mombassa background that endowed him with that rare resource of unflappable poise in situations where most of us wilt shamefully. Having said this, it is also relevant to appreciate that Ali, as with most great persons, did not take himself nearly as seriously as others took him. He always enjoyed laughing at his own over the top exploits, not with a polite drawing room chuckle, but with a robust and contagious laugh that trumped whatever difficulty or tease he might experience.

When I first met Ali he was a brilliant product of an Oxford education with an outlook and elocution that might be associated with latter day disciples of John Stuart Mill and other liberal notables of the nineteenth century. He spoke eloquently, yet with a certain detached intellectuality. I never remember Ali being at a loss for words or ideas, but also not in these early years engaged socially and politically beyond his passionate commitment to maintain academic freedom enabling the work of the mind to go forward unimpeded along with an instinctive distaste for the sort of dictatorial ruling style that he was then encountering in Uganda.

In subsequent years Ali confronted some difficult family challenges, and experienced what others might describe as an ‘ideological midlife crisis’ culminating in a turn away from the West, an embrace of Islam as his empowering cultural foundation, and a fierce civilizational nationalism that bespoke his African identity, although coupled with his belief that Africa might serve as the stepping stone for the emergence of a genuinely global culture. I have many memories of this period. Listening to Ali speak with fervor in private about the propriety of banning Salmon Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in deference to the sensitivities of Muslim communities where his satiric treatment of Mohammed and Islam were being received as blasphemy, giving rise to violent reactions. I mention Ali’s views on this delicate matter because it represented such a sharp turn away from the kind of liberal openness to uncensored thought that had seemed his signature trait when we met in Kampala.

Then there was Ali’s unembarrassed cooperation with the academic activities of Reverend Moon’s Unification Church, which had struck many progressive folk, including myself, as well beyond the pale of acceptable collaborative work. Ali did not welcome being given political advice from his Western friends about the boundaries of academic propriety. He insisted on his independence and individuality, and declared that he would not sever the connections he had with the Moon operations, also contending, which was true, that he was left free to say and do what he thought when participating in events under their auspices. As warm as Ali was, he was defiantly willing to swim against the tide of political correctness wherever it might land him. In the case of the Unification Church Ali actually counter-attacked his critics, observing that Western missionaries had long penetrated non-Western societies, often in furtherance of crude colonialist interests without being berated for their cultural insensitivity, yet when religious figures from the non-West dare reverse the process, it’s no-go. He supported, in principle, such efforts as those of the Unification Church under the rubric of what he called ‘counter-penetration,’ what some more recently call counter-hegemony. In this instance as in others, whether one agreed or not, Ali understood well the whys and wherefores of his controversial stands.

Along similar ideological lines I would also mention Ali’s Reith Lectures in 1979 on the BBC, a prestigious platform that Ali used to shock the audience by putting forth the heretical notion that the countries in the West would only consider seriously giving up nuclear weapons when such weaponry fell into the hands of African and other Third World governments. [published in 1980 under the title The African Condition]. In effect, he was advocating nuclear proliferation as the only realistic path to nuclear disarmament, which was a total inversion of the Western consensus. It was not a popular position to adopt, and made never made an impact on the policy outlook in the West that had accommodated itself to nuclear weapons in the possession of the permanent members of the Security Council (and a few others), while remaining ready to risk a shooting war to keep nuclear weapons from falling into the ‘wrong’ hands. For Mazrui, and for me, any hands are the wrong hands. The justification for the 2003 Iraq War and the threat diplomacy to which Iran had been exposed for many years were expressions of this anti-proliferation alternative to nuclear disarmament. In effect, Ali saw through this Western approach as an effort to keep the Third World under its thumb in the post-colonial era. What made Ali so valuable was his capacity and willingness to articulate in lucid language such ideas that went against the grain of mainstream conventional wisdom in the West, making all us of think freshly about issues we had previously put aside as settled.

In a similar provocative vein, Ali even had some good words to say on behalf of the militaristic leadership (despite his own personal problems in Uganda) that had become so prevalent in post-colonial Africa, interpreting this phenomenon as a healthy reassertion of black male personhood in the aftermath of centuries of colonial demasculinization and racism imposed on African communities. Our grasp of the recent developments in Ferguson are illustrative of the parallel persistence of racism in America long after it had been legally abolished and would have surely benefitted from Ali’s commentary. I am confident that Ali’s take on these sordid events would have exhibited his originality, and rejection of the liberal platitudes of the day, but dug deeper into the cultural soil of fear and hatred that helps explain recurrent police violence, black victimization and anger, and public bewilderment.

This evolving political consciousness shaped Ali’s contribution to the WOMP process where he maintained a steady and lively presence, always the most articulate person in every conversation, and certainly the one among us with the greatest gift of conceptualization. In the WOMP context Ali’s enduring contribution was his wonderful and quite prophetic book A World Federation of Cultures (1976). The main contention of the book is the ‘postulate’ that “the transmission of ideas and their internalization are more relevant for world reform than the establishment of formal institutions for external control.” [p.2] This is a crucial starting point that goes directly against the grain of most thought about global reform that is devoted to the advocacy of feasible or desirable structures of governance. What Ali believes will improve the human culture is the establishment of a world or global culture. Again his words are illuminating: “At first sight the evolution of a world culture seems to be even more distant than the evolution of a world government. But a closer look at human history so far would dispel this misconception. In reality, we are no nearer a world government than we were a century ago, but we are much nearer a world culture.” [p.2]

In apprehending Ali’s approach, we should realize that it is rather complex and sophisticated, and difficult to apprehend all at once. While acknowledging Westernization as providing some of the foundations for global culture, Ali is clear about the need for a prior regional assertiveness in the form of regional autonomy. He posits a special role for Africa, achieving post-colonial independence by way of affirming regional and civilizational identity, ridding Africa of structural and cultural dependency, while at the same time reaching out beyond itself. In his view, regional self-esteem must precede empathy for the human species, the most essential ingredient of the transition from a collective sense of self at the regional level to a universalization of outlook. Ali is fully conscious of the difficulties of at once making use of his education and socialization in the West and the imperative of ridding political consciousness in Africa of crippling ‘cultural dependence.’

As he puts it, “[t]ranscending both the cultural Euro-centricism and political Afro-centricism of this book is the larger ambition of a more viable world order for mankind as a whole.” [p.14] The fuller presentation of the Mazrui worldview would show how nuanced and relevant his construction of the future remains almost 40 years after the book was published.

Ali’s ideas set forth in the WOMP context sprung to life in the 1990s, especially thanks to Samuel Huntington’s inflammatory version of cultural differences as historically revealed for him to be ‘a clash of civilizations.’ This view was given great credence in the thinking and behavior of neoconservatives in America, encouraged by the more interventionist applications of Huntington’s favored by Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami. These custodians of the American global state represented everything that Ali opposed—renewal of Western intervention based on a presumed cultural superiority and a callous disregard of non-Western cultural values. We still have much to learn from the Mazrui way forward, which incidentally is also currently professed by the Prime Minister of Turkey, Ahmed Davutoğlu [e.g. see Davutoğlu’s foreword to Civilizations and World Order, ed. By Fred Dallmayr, M. Kayapınar, and İsmael Yaylacı (2014)].

The last time I saw Ali was in the Spring of 2011 at the Intellectual Forum of the UN Conference on Least Developed Countries held in Istanbul. He was clearly diminished physically, having notable difficulty to move around, but his mental energy and conceptual agility were as dazzling as ever. There was about him then the aura of greatness that his death has not diminished.

Beyond the marvel of his oral gift and the instructive provocations and explorations of his thought, Ali remains vivid for me as a friend who relished long talks lasting deep into the night, which were invariably enlivened by the joys of unblended scotch whiskey. In a search for comparisons of talent and imaginative power, I can only think of James Baldwin, whom I admired from a distance for these same qualities of mind and heart that I found so captivating in Ali Mazrui. Perhaps, my most precious memory of all was the realization that when listening to Ali I was not only hearing an authoritative voice of Africa but also the universal voice of humanity. RIP.

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Mandela, Manning and Snowden – rebels who answered the call of higher duty

CounterPunch 

Two individuals who have unquestionably dominated the 2013 agenda are Nelson Mandela and Edward Snowden. Their treatment in the media could hardly be more different. Yet in many respects what they share is remarkable, and that they brought out the best and the worst in humanity is no less so.

Mandela’s struggle against apartheid, remembered again after his death, and Snowden’s baring of the worldwide intelligence colossus built by the United States, have stirred a much-needed debate on morality and manipulation of law in conducting mass surveillance, and then justifying the practice by shifty arguments. Bradley Manning’s disclosures of the US military’s shocking conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan, his trial and sentencing are also of great importance. However, the spread of Snowden’s revelations is global, and their ramifications are going to be more profound and lasting.

Mandela and Snowden are rebels from different generations – both classed as criminals as they took on the system. While going against the existing regime designed to serve the interests of a few at the cost of the vast majority, Mandela and Snowden answered the call of higher duty, beyond man-made legal measures which are unjust and unacceptable. To Mandela, South Africa’s apartheid system, with all its consequences, was so repugnant. To Snowden, the abuse of power involving the wholesale surveillance of citizens and world leaders was so wrong that it changed the game.

The association of Mandela and Snowden with Moscow also bears a remarkable similarity between the two men. Mandela’s African National Congress was supported by the Soviet Union in the era of Communism, and members of the South African Communist Party were in the ANC. In the post-Soviet era, it was Moscow where Snowden found refuge, as the Obama administration used all its power to have him captured and brought back to the United States.

Mandela was lucky to escape the death penalty, received a life sentence in 1964, and spent more than a quarter century in harsh prison conditions. If Snowden had been returned to America, almost certainly he would have spent the rest of his life in jail – and it could have been worse.

Radical and determined, their activities have been polarising at home and abroad. Feted by their admirers and reviled by defamers, their actions raise very difficult questions, only to receive glib responses. In confronting South Africa’s stubborn racist regime after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 and the subsequent banning of the ANC, Mandela concluded that they had to abandon nonviolence. He explained later that “when the oppressor – in addition to his repressive policies – uses violence against the oppressed, the oppressed have no alternative but to retaliate by similar forms of action.” Mandela had to go underground before he and other senior ANC leaders were captured, tried and sentenced.

To escape a similar fate, especially after Bradley Manning’s 35-year sentence, Edward Snowden decided to leave the United States, ending up in Russia. To suggest that Snowden should have stayed in his country and justified his actions in US courts is either naïve or disingenuous. For the personal cost of such actions is very high, as Mandela, Manning and Snowden have all found.

There are people who will disagree with the very idea of finding a connection between the three despite compelling similarities. It is always easy to admire someone who was once a rebel, highlighted what was reprobate in society and furthered the cause of human consciousness – all a long time ago. The making of Mandela’s image took decades. The sustained official vilification of Manning and Snowden now reminds us of the manner in which Mandela was treated by the South African authorities and Western governments, indeed by the media, at the time of his rebellion fifty years ago.

All of which draws attention to the scramble among the world’s most powerful leaders to be seen at Mandela’s memorial and funeral, and to join in the adulation of his people, while the same leaders have been busy in the vilification of those many regard as young heroes of today. The oddity, in part, is due to the addiction to television cameras that has become an essential part of showbiz politics. There also exists a craving in political leaders to preach the world what they fail to practice themselves. Their desire to look good is irresistible. The general loss of trust in public figures and institutions is a consequence of their instinct for expediency. The potency of their message of toleration and reconciliation to Africa would be more convincing if liberal and moral values were not so much under pressure as they are in the West itself.

The long and arduous struggle of Mandela reflected the revolutionary spirit of his predecessors, one of whom was German revolutionary and American statesman Carl Schurz, whose words are appropriate here: “My country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong to be put right.” Not missing the opportunity of reconciliation when it finally came was something that made Mandela great.

It would be premature to compare Manning and Snowden with Mandela, for their struggles are current, and not time tested. Where they can be contrasted, favourably, with Nelson Mandela is in their struggles for higher moral values which go beyond the narrow boundaries of nationalism and patriotism. 

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