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| From: |
"Ishtiaq Ahmed" |
| To: |
"'Mukto-mona Moderator'" |
| Subject: |
SV: For Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed |
| Date: |
Tue, 29 Jul 2003 00:36:28 +0200 |
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Dear
Mr Roy,
I
returned only today from the
UK
after a stay of several weeks and therefore could not reply
earlier. If it is not too late, please do publish my article on
your list.
Best
regards,
Ishtiaq
Ahmed
Associate
Professor
Department
of Political Science
Stockholm
University
106
91 Stockholm
SWEDEN.
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Minorities
in South Asia
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Democratic-minded political leaders and enlightened intellectuals have to come
out and speak openly against the homogenisation mania that is being fostered
Exploitation, oppression and persecution of minorities are the salient
features of all South Asian states. In India, Christians and Muslims face
verbal terrorism as well as recurring physical assaults by extremist Hindu
political and cultural organisations. The carnage of Muslims in Gujarat last
year is an ugly reminder of the grave dangers in which minorities are placed.
The distribution of trishuls (tridents) by the Hindu extremists to their
cadres is the latest attempt to terrify the minorities.
In Pakistan, Muslim fundamentalist groups have been responsible for attacking
Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis. Shias have also been the targets of vicious
criminal attacks. The blasphemy law has played no role in making Pakistan a
humane Muslim society. Indeed, procedural lacunae in the law have been used to
persecute minorities and even Muslims. In Bangladesh, minorities continue to
face persecution, harassment and terror by Islamic fundamentalist groups and
indeed politically motivated criminal elements.
The situation for the Muslims in Nepal has become bad after Kashmiri and
Pakistani extremists hijacked an Indian aircraft (December 24-31, 1999) from
Kathmandu . Muslims in the Tamil strongholds in the northeast of Sri Lanka
have been victims of terror and ethnic cleansing. There were also some attacks
on Muslims in the Sinhalese areas of Sri Lanka in the wake of the Taliban’s
destruction of the Buddha statutes in Afghanistan.
Threats and assaults on their lives and lack of economic opportunities are
forcing members of minorities to migrate illegally. They risk their lives in
the thousands while crossing international borders. It has been reported that
individuals caught by border guards are subjected to cruel treatment
irrespective of whether they are apprehended at the point of entry or exit.
The treatment of women is most deplorable because they are subjected to rape
and other indignities.
Minorities are not only small in numbers, they are usually also economically
and socially weak, and lack political clout. On the other hand, states can,
most of the time, ignore international criticism of their treatment of
minorities. It is only when massive human rights violations take place that
the international community feels morally compelled to respond. Mostly,
protests are confined to diplomatic censure and petitioning campaigns by human
rights and minority rights civil society actors. International law does not
permit intervention in the internal affairs of states. Some states interpret
their sovereignty as a licence to do what they want within their domestic
sphere.
The problem becomes compounded when we remember that there is no objective
definition of a minority. Religion, sect, language, ethnicity, caste — all
such features have been used as the basis for describing a minority in South
Asian politics. Aggression against all such minorities can be found in South
Asia.
Persecution of minorities originates in a belief that the nation-state should
be homogeneous. All deviations from the ideal homogenous nation are considered
impurities that have to be removed by all means. The Nazis epitomised this
thinking in extremis. However, they were not content with simply creating a
pure German race-nation. They wanted to rule the world by liquidating inferior
races or driving them into slavery.
Similar, if not identical, reasons and motivations can be found in the
worldviews of South Asian fascists. Whether they justify their weird claims to
purity on the basis of race or religion or something else, given a chance they
are ready to conquer and expand their power beyond their own states. If that
requires pulling the trigger and blowing up their enemies and themselves to
smithereens they seem willing to pay the price.
If nothing is done to stem this rising tide of irrational nationalism, South
Asia will sooner or later explode into unimaginable scenes of genocide. At
least since the eighties, illicit weapons, acquired from the Afghan war and
later from elsewhere, have been bought and sold within states and even across
borders with the connivance of corrupt border officials. Armed militias and
criminal gangs can be found all over South Asia.
Under the circumstances, if large-scale killing of minorities and minor sects
were to take place there is bound to be a chain reaction of revenge killings
all over South Asia. This would mean the end of the only admirable historical
fact about the region — it has been more successful than other parts of the
world in accommodating a mixture of cultures, religions, sects, languages and
ethnic and racial elements and so on; not in terms of egalitarianism, but a
traditional pluralism through syncretism and synthesis disseminated by Sufis,
Sants and Gurus. Indeed their teachings made possible the tolerance of
difference and non-conformity, but the champions of homogeneous nations want
to eradicate all vestiges of such a tradition.
If, now, through mass murder all deviant minorities are exterminated and the
surviving group of people speaks the same language or prostrate to the same
deity or possesses the same skin colour or facial structure, would that be a
laudable achievement? Worse, if that means one surviving nation-state, should
that be celebrated as an outstanding achievement of the new millennium?
I do not wish to dramatise the absurdity and moral bankruptcy of such
thinking. But it is important that socially committed and enlightened members
of the majority community act immediately and decisively to uproot this
disease which is slowly but surely metastasising. Minorities have to act
responsibly as well. They should manifestly identify with the legitimate
national interests of their states and act as patriotic citizens.
More importantly, democratic-minded political leaders and enlightened
intellectuals have to come out and speak openly against the homogenisation
mania that is being fostered through rightwing ideologues, journalists,
politicians and political and cultural organisations. It is time to do
something to save South Asia from the curse of fascism.
The author is an associate professor of Political Science at Stockholm
University. He is the author of two books
source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_20-7-2003_pg3_2
A Petition from Mukto-mona:
Save
the Minorities from peril and let live with equal rights. :
https://gold.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/petition_peace/
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