Minority Speak

After reading from Tehelka and Aaj Tak about the way we treat our minorities in some parts of the country and then gloat about it, I watched this TV news feed where a Sikh cadet was just commissioned into the Pakistan Army. Till that newscast, the only other minority I had heard of who was holding some post of distinction in Pakistan was a Hindu, Justice Bhagwan Das, who was officiating as the Supreme Court chief justice. Of course, I am sure there must be more at other levels like for Danesh Kaneria in their cricket team but we don’t hear of them much
In a sense there is nothing unusual about this – Pakistan is an Islamic state but inspite of the many attempts at Islamization, strands of other original vision of a secular state do survive and find utterance through such instances. But I wonder if people like this, religious minorities in an avowedly religious state at least officially lead a schizophrenic existence with an identity that only complicates life in many situations. Partly it is complicated because Pakistan itself seems some times to be a confused identity – not quite an Islamic state like the Taliban’s Afghanistan or even theocratic Iran where minorities know their place (next to nothing!) or a avowedly secular state where religious identity does not mater – most of Europe at perhaps!

I wonder what goes through the minorities’ mind. The thought of a Sikh soldier shouting Jo Bole Sonehal and charging at an Indian soldier seems to be a little incomprehensible. Try to picture this mentally. A large number of the Sikh Gurus lost their lives at the hands of the Mughal emperors and the Sikh war cry was coined in the battlefields fighting Muslims. The turban that Harcharan Singh wears is a symbol of the Khalsa, a military style brotherhood created when the initially pacifist community established by Guru Nanak was under threat of annihilation by the Muslims. Yet the Sikh officer Harcharan Singh shortly after the passing out parade has to assure his countrymen that if and when the time comes, the Sikhs would prove no less loyal than their Muslim brothers.

Who was the enemy in mind when Harcharan Singh made the statement? The pro Taliban militia that the Pakistan Army is fighting on the Eastern borders? Unlikely. No one’s heart in Muslim Pakistan would have wanted to hear that a Sikh officer would go the extra mile in fighting a battle which a large section of the Pakistan Army believes to be fratricidal in nature and which they are carrying out largely out of political and other compulsions. It is obvious that the young Sikh officer was making these comments alluding to India as the shadow enemy. But the fact that he had to make such a statement is significant.

The minorities have this peculiar need that they need to deal with; the perennial need to make known that they are loyal and though the article in Indian Express was the one that caught my attention and the article referred to Pakistan, the same holds true in India as well. Much like the medieval serf from whom nothing was explicitly demanded but a tribute was always expected, minorities, not only are often expected to cough up the tribute to the mai baap majority but deliver it up front the at the first instance or be taught a lesson by the likes of Narendra Modi and this appears to be true as much as in theocratic Pakistan ruled by the blasphemy laws as much as in secular India with its Freedom of Religion Laws

Religious Freedom : Should the US be Policing us ?

Every year at the demand of the US Congress, the State Department prepares and presents on behalf of the US President an interesting report. It documents the state of religious freedom around the world and of course from a human and civil rights point of view, it is a critical document since religious freedom is a key ingredient of human rights.

However I have always wondered what business it is of the US Congress to track in such a formal way the state of religious freedom around the globe when there is a lot going on that needs investigation that could be traced back to the US itself. Also, while the US government is more than happy to pontificate on what other countries should or should not do, one wonders what it does when the report reveals some chinks in its own chequered armor

The report for the year 2006 was released on September 12th and in its introduction it states explicitly that:

The purpose of this report on religious freedom is to document the actions of governments--those that repress religious expression, persecute innocent believers, or tolerate violence against religious minorities, as well as those that respect, protect, and promote religious freedom. We strive to report with fairness and accuracy on abuses against adherents of all religious traditions and beliefs. The governments we report on range from those that provided a high level of protection for religious freedom in the broadest sense (those that "generally respected" religious freedom) to totalitarian regimes that sought to control religious thought and expression and regarded some or all religious groups as threats.

I find it amusing that our Left leaning parties which are so vocal about a treaty whose provisions are ambivalent at best and whose actual implications are yet to be really known digest this annual policing act where the US State documents the "actions of governments" explicitly impinging on the sovereignty of individual nations.

I think that this sort of a document is extremely useful but it should have been more appropriately produced by the UN Commission on Human Rights and presented by the UN Secretary General to the General Assembly. After all human rights, civil liberties and religious freedom are of concern to the whole world and is not just a foreign policy determinant for the US. Besides in the voluminous document, one country's record is not documented - the United State's own record is missing. It looks like the State Department has assumed that all is well and will always be well in the US and so it does not require any surveillance. To me that it is nothing but big power arrogance.

India generally gets a clean chit. The report states that the policy of India's National Government continued to contribute to the generally free practice of religion, during the period covered by the report. The report indicated problems in some provinces of the country. Some state governments enacted and amended "anti-conversion" laws with police and enforcement agencies not acting swiftly enough to effectively counter societal attacks particularly against religious minorities, said the report.

Despite Government efforts to foster communal harmony some extremists continued to evade due to ineffective investigation and prosecution on charges of attacks on religious minorities, particularly at the state and local level, added the report. The full report is meticulously researched and while it is a valuable tool for research and advocacy, the fact that a foreign government has gone around snooping around the world is not a pleasant thought.

One interesting finding that should leave President Bush red in the face is that in Iraq, which is effectively under US occupation, the state of religious freedom has gone bad. Religious freedom has sharply deteriorated in Iraq over the past year because of the insurgency and violence targeting people of specific faiths, despite the U.S. military buildup intended to improve security. Violence is not confined to the well-known rivalry between Sunni and Shia Muslims. To top it all, ironically, many Christians are facing worse times than under Saddam Hussein's secular regime.
Saddam viewed Christians as non-threatening and elevated a Christian, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, as the public face of his regime. Following Saddam's ouster last year, many Christians were heartened by an interim constitution that guaranteed basic religious freedom. But as violence increased, including kidnappings of some rich Christians and beheadings of others who worked for the U.S. military, some Assyrians demanded creation of a "safe haven" in land currently governed autonomously by Iraqi Kurds, effectively rubbing salt into the wounds of George Bush who wears his Christianity on his sleeves.

Although this annually produced document is an extremely useful document and is largely credible, researched and factual, the question remains - the US has its own warts and what is the ethical basis for it to peep over other countries' shoulders. It was only in August of this year, just last month, that President Bush issued an order decreeing that Article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention - which prohibits the humiliation or degradation of prisoners of war - should apply to the CIA's detention and interrogation programme at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Groups like Amnesty international have a campaign going against the human rights abuses perpetrated by the US itself.

And thus the perennial question - since when can the pot call the kettle black? Or have the rules changed along the way and it is now for big brother to set the rules and the rest of us just fall in line?

Life in the Shadow of Terror

In my childhood, we lived in the shadow of the cold war. Today we live in the shadow of terror. In retrospect, the former was better. There was a communist group of countries led by the Soviet Union and there was a Capitalist group led by the Americans. Always seemingly at loggerheads. With India propped up in the middle as a non aligned nation , though in reality , we were titled a bit towards the Soviet camp what with the Indo-Soviet treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. But although the Cold War was very real and very frightening at one level, it did not touch the lives of ordinary people like us in India. We understood more of the Cold War through the novels of Eric Ambler and John le Carre than through any thing we saw or experienced.

Out of the shadows of the Cold War emerged the whiff of religious fundamentalism and terrorism which has today expanded into a bigger mushroom cloud than any one of the doomsday prophets of the cold era ever imagined. And the worst thing is that while the chess moves of the Soviets and the Americans were played out in the lawns of the Kremlin or the White House, terrorism could be staring at us across every innocuous bend or street corner as the victims of 7/11 whose first anniversary we commemorate found to their horror. Or as the victims of 9/11 found earlier. Or as the victims of the Bali bombings, tourists frolicking on the beach found to their horror. As the pictures emerging from the stand off at Lal Masjid in Islamabad show. Terrorism has encircled the globe and from the vantage point of today, it seems that it has changed our life forever.

A year ago, when I was pick pocketed and lost my mobile handset , my biggest priority was not to go and look for the handset or any thing like that but to hot foot it to the police station to lodge an FIR. The intent was to ensure that the loss of the SIM card was entered on official records at the earliest opportunity. I had head and read of several occasions when stolen SIM cards had been used to make calls and even if the legitimate owner of the card was eventually often cleared, the stress and harassment along the way was huge.

Boarding a flight had always included security checks though of course, now the lines are longer and the frisking more rough and stringent. But even other every day pleasures - train journeys, bus journeys and shopping in the mall or in even in the neighborhood discount market is fraught with unexpected dangers and uncertainties for which there can be never be ever some thing called a fool proof security.

The manner in which we have to move around with and identity proof makes it look that we are not actually living in a democracy but in a distorted police state. You want to buy a car – you need a car. The police want to know who is buying it for it could be used as a car bomb. You want to rent a house – the police want to know who is going to live there for it could be terrorist safe houses. You want an internet connection – the police want your IP address in case you are communicating with the Al Quaida or some thing. And if you are a student or some thing and do not have an internet connection, be prepared to prove your identity every time you visit a cyber café.

The sad fact about life today is that the carefree times of yester years seem to be all but gone. Every man and man and woman is suspect, every piece of luggage is suspect, every one who looks different, speaks different and prays different is suspect, and so you crane your neck around every bend and curve, fearful of every one and trustful of no one. The age of the simple joys of life are over for the time, or so it seems from the window where I stand.

Senior Citizens:Withering Away

There is increasing publicity these days about how today, a large proportion of India's population is young and how their sheer numbers add up to be a huge number. This is of course true. But highlighted less often is another fact – that India as a nation is graying and that by the year 2026,the population of senior citizens in the country is set to double. While it was 71 million in 2001, a report prepared by the Census of India shows that it will reach 173 million in the next 19 years. While the proportion of the population in the working age group is also expected to rise,their number too will be lower than the rise in the number of elderly.

This sets the stage for host of social problems in India as most of these elderly citizens will be without any form of social security or pensions. besides as society itself undergoes a transformation in its character, the conventionally available emotional security and family care may also be disappearing. The fact that this is already happening is tacitly acknowledged when the government finds it necessary to legislate through the The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill 2006 Under the provisions of which, a person who was responsible for the upkeep of parents failed to take care of them, can attract punitive measures like three months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000. Besides, it also provides for option to revoke the will that might have been written up by the parent at some stage in life.
Since India has always projected itself as a state where family values are strong , enduring and can match the absence of a conventional social security that the so called developed world offers. No old age homes and foster care for us and our parents we proclaim , but the reality seems to be some what different. True , our parents and grand parents may not live in the typical old age homes which in India have been typically associated with the destitute but it is possible for the senior citizens to live equally or more emotionally and financially starved lives in their own homes lonely and isolated from their children and grand children.

Some how , the situation of the elderly has not attracted the efforts of too many voluntary agencies. Till recently Helpage was the only agency of any size or significance that was involved in the welfare of the senior citizens and the numbers that they could reach were few,given the numbers involved. A recent entrant in this sphere is the Tina Ambani run Harmony Foundation. This is in sharp contrast to the huge numbers of groups working with the other vulnerable section of our population , the children. While working for children and their welfare is of course commendable, when there is little activity among the elderly who are equally vulnerable,if not more, we as a nation are sending out the message that while we care about the possibilities presented by the future, we see little meaning in and have little gratitude for the vast numbers who contributed to our past and recent history.

As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the great revolt of 1857, it is commendable that we remember great historical figures who are no more and the debt that we owe them. Now, if only we would show the same consideration for those who helped write and shape our modern history and who are still fortunately in our midst. That would be a fitting gesture of showing them value and affirmation.