:: Friday, May 17, 2002 ::

Re: The Use of Force

I understand your conceptions about the use of force, and agree with the basic thrust of your argument. I am not averse to the use of force to maintain certain values, but I cannot help thinking that much of the battle and argument is already lost if we have to resort to force. It was Sun Tzu after all averred that the really gifted general would be able to defeat his opponent without having to bring him to battle, of course against this one should also keep in mind the Roman saying that if a people desire peace they must prepare for war. Personally, I would have supported the actual use of police firing to prevent the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque, and think it is shocking that police and paramilitary forces stood idly by while the kar sevaks demolished the site. I also cannot understand the hesitancy to use troops to storm the Golden Temple, and the wrist wringing by liberals and the outrage condoned by many members of the middle-classes after the event till this day. Nobody can be happy to condone the use of force, and it should be incumbent both upon the state and society to respect the feelings of religious societies and shrines, however, this should not be abused to provide a cover for religious fundamentalism and violence by any community and the state after all has to act to protect all of its citizens and prevent loss of life. I think we can bear in mind some Machiavelli's dictum on the proper use of force - that it should be done as a single action/s that will bring about a resolution of the conflict and that it should not be a tool which has to be repeatedly used to bludgeon a populace into submission. Indian politicians who are frequently described as Machivellian should also bear in mind his warning to prospective rulers: on no account should the Prince touch or help himself to his subject's women or money, by this standard few Indian politicians can make it to the grade. But generally, I do agree with you that there reaches a point when one has to be willing to risk all and use violence to defend what we value and I think this also reveals the religious nature of secularism: for just as there are those who are willing to die for their religion and risk a general conflagration there must be those who are willing to do the same for secularism. This leads to another point about desire: in India I see the desire of the former but as yet secularism cannot arouse the same level of desire in its own proponents save for a small minority....

Two Political uses of Fantasy

I think we will discuss the fuller details of the uses of fantasy at a later date but I thought it pertinent to point out certain aspects where it touches on our discussion on belief and the political sphere. I will leave aside a discussion on how our material condition affects our ideology except to not that the construction of a fantasy is not dependent on the sincerity or depth of subjective belief in an ideological project. One can note that like the Ideological State Apparatuses of Althusser it is the external observance of ritual that materialises ideology - the subject who maintains his distance to the ritual is unaware of the fact that the ritual already dominates him from within. I think it was Pascal who first said with regards to Catholicism kneel down, pray and act as if you believe and belief will come by itself. This notion is borrowed by Marx in his explanation of commodity fetishism - in his explicit self-awareness, a capitalist is a common-sense nominalist but the material sincerity of his deeds reflects the underlying structure of the commodity universe. Many ideologies work in the same to attract followers on a mass basis through ritual.

The Nazi Vision of the Volkgemeinschaft

To develop the point that if an ideology is to enchant and indoctrinate individuals it must have and parasitise a fantasmastic kernel which can not be simply reduced to a simple instrument of legitimiseing pretensions to power based on notions of solidarity, justice, belonging to a community etc....The important point is not that every ideology have such an irrational kernel but that it is this very irrational kernel that renders an ideology workable. In one of his lesser known speeches at the Nuremberg rally, Hitler made a self-referential remark about how this reunion is to be perceived: an external observer unable to experience the "inner greatness" of the Nazi movement will see only the display of external military and political strength, while for us, members of the movement who live and breathe it, it is infinitely more, the assertion of an inner link connecting us. This is a reference to the unsymbolised kernel, Hitler's favourite Wagnerian opera was not the overtly German and jingoistic Meistersinger or Lohengrin with its call to arms to defend Germany against the eastern hordes, but Tristan with its tendency to leave behind the Day - the everyday life of symbolic obligations, honours, debts etc... and to immerse oneself in the Night, to embrace ecstatically one's death. This aesthetic denial of the political was the core of fantasmastic ideology of Nazis attitudes: at stake in the war is something more than politics, an ecstatic aetheticised experience of Community best exemplified precisely by the nightly rituals during the Nuremberg rallies. In this reading, the dangerous element of Nazism was not the 'utter politicisation' of everyday life social life, but the suspension of the political through a reference to a fantasmastic kernel which resists Symbolisation and is much stronger than the 'normal' democratic political order.

The Vision of Poverty in Calcutta

The second point I want to make about political uses of fantasy is that the perceiving subject is always involved in an impossible gaze, which obscures their own complicity in producing the vision they perceive. To take the example of Mother Teresa in Calcutta, which the Western Media uses to portray saintly activities being carried out in a hellhole which acts as an allegory for the Third World. Calcutta is regularly represented as such - a Hell on Earth, the supreme example of a decaying Third World Megapolis: full of social decay, poetry, violence, and corruption, with its residents caught in terminal apathy. Ignoring the reality, that Calcutta is actually a city of great activity, culturally more thriving than Mumbai, with a leftist coalition government providing a network of social services not available in other north Indian cities to the ssame degree. In this picture of constructed depravity, Mother Teresa brings a ray of hope to the dejected with the message that poverty is to be accepted as a way to redemption, since in enduring their sad fate with silent dignity and faith the poor repeat Christ's way of the Cross. The ideological motive of this operation is a double one: in so far as one proposes to the poor and terminally ill to look for salvation in their very suffering, Mother Teresa deters them from probing into the causes of their predicament - from politicising their plight. At the same time, she offers the rich in the West the possibility of a substitute redemption by making financial contributions to the charities run by the Sister of Charity. All this works against the background of the fantasmastic image of the Third World as Hell on Earth - a place so utterly desolate that no political activity, only charity and compassion, can alleviate suffering - a point made eloquently by Christopher Hitchins in his book on Mother Teresa.

Class and the Nature of Belief:

There is a gap between belief in a constructed ideal and belief which springs from being. To clarify one can use the theme in Bourdieu's work of the difference between the true upper-classness of the old aristocracy and the false upper-classness of the middle classes. The aristocracy lives it's code 'in-itself' while the middle classes consciously aspire to relate to this example ' for-itself' in a reflected way and thus spoil the effect, which is only genuine if it emerges as an unplanned effect. A clearer example comes from fashion: the aspiring middle classes doggedly follow the fashion, and so always lag behind, while the upper classes freely violate the rules of fashion - and thus personify its trends by always being ahead of it. There is an analogy here in the practice of modern Hinduism. The Hindus I was most impressed with in India practised their religion as a way of life without clearly defining religious boundaries and obsessing about other religious communities; they also did not feel the need to organise or strengthen their religion in response to urges to "modernise " their religion by the Hindutva forces and temples and sects where such attitudes were fostered were ignored many social and religious boundaries and concentrated more on the spiritual and internal aspects of faith and were quite hostile to the politicisation of what was before an unreflected part of their lived lives; while the politically organised festivals and motivated events were populated by ideologues and enthusiasts who were nominally Hindus but who in their very eagerness to perform rituals which had long fallen into disuse and revive traditions which had been superceded and by doing tranformed and differed from how the bulk of the population actually practised thier religion. I will even go further and argue that if the historic tendency of Hinduism and Islam in the Indic traditions pay attention more to the internal devotional aspects of religion and ignore the external political and formal ritual practises such as the location of Temple sites, birth places of deities etc. those who indulge in such acts are not just guilty of bad faith but can also be considered not to be real Hindus/Muslims.

:: Conrad Barwa 11:05 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Re: Lagaan and Monsoon

Lagaan purports to be an explanation of the ~Nationalsit movement, and as you point out has an essentially paternalist bias, this is the bias of the indigenous bourgeosie towards the other actors on the freedom struggle: the only progression is that the role of Subaltern groups is now openly acknowledged - of course the Subaltern is only wheeled on late in the day to save the whole anti-colonial movement from collapse - his contribution is vital to the success of the endeavour but as you said he remains basically mute and in a subordinate relationship to the dominant groups. The next stage is to protray the Subaltern as an individual in his own right and give him a voice of his own. Similarly in an other film which claims to render the National struggle historically is 1942: A Love Story, here again certain myths as regards the national movement are portrayed. In particular, the terrorists fighting against the British are helped by Hindu worshipers and by itinerant Muslim clerics - many Indians at the time who later espouseed quite communal views liked the film and praised it, when I pointed out the disparity between the solidarity amongst religious communties displayed in the film and the gap today, I was met with a nostalgic yearning for the past where it was claimed that the euphoria of the Nationlaist movement allowed people to forget their petty differences - what is interesting within this nostalgio is the discernment of a past and a future where communal divisions were not present, I think this nostalgia and yearning for solidarity is something secualrists can build on.

I agree with your point on the flase images of prosperity and unity but we must also understand that these are images not uncommon to many Bollywood films as well. It is why I think in some senses that cinema is the true opium of the masses - it offers an escape into the fantasies of the creen which act as a suppresant to the ugly reality of everyday life. Many films especially since the 1970's show the lone embittered hero struggling against a corrupt system and dodgy policeman, politicans are always shown to be untrustworthy, the legal system broken and frequently the only resourse for the hero is to take his own violent revenge on his enemies. there is an underlying rage against the system but one which does not offer any real solutions or alternatives but only projects a violent wish-fulfillment against the objects of hate. No mainstream film even pretends to address the religious divides in Indian society today; the guady sets, exotic locations and colourful dance numbers also convey a lifestyle out of reach for most Indians. When a serious dierctor such as Satyajit Ray does show the reality of rural India in his films, such as the Apu trilogy his is castigated by Nargis Dutt a famous Bollywood actress and later MP, for shoiwing a poor India to the world abroad and selling Indian poverty to the West - never mind that the Bengali langugage of the film was directed primarily at a film that aimed at a Bengali speaking audience and therefore did not even have a pan-Indian reach never mind a "foreign" one. A rejoinder to Dutt would that the flashy and exotic sond 'n dance numbers churned out by Bollywood also sells it self to the West - the impact can be seen in films such as Moulin Rouge which draw upon such elements for thier costume design and song numbers. Is this not selling an India to the West as well?

Another point one should make is the totally false nature of the love stories in most Indian films - the hero and heroine almost always marry for love frequently against parental wishes and overcome all obstacles to stage thier grand romance. This while not unheard of in India is not the norm of how romantic relationships usually occur. Of course this feeds into a wider point about the use of romantic love in modern culture generally - I remember a Gramsciasn cartoon in a comicbook with a young couple dancing while the ominous figures of the State, Church, Media, School and the dread Beast of Official culture look on watchfully, the refrain of the song gurgles out the ususal lyrics but the cartoonist has provided his translation of the subtext which goes something like: " Choose your partners, look for love, think like this, don't be radical, life is bliss". When I see cheesy filimic romance I am always reminded of this cartoon.

In anycase, I am worried by the crass consumerism and materialism by much of north Indian Hindu culture; I do think much of the culture of the urban middle classes and much of the domiannt groups in the countryside is quite materialist espeically in the Hindi belt. I look back to films such as those made by Bimal Roy about a writer descendiong in alcholism after an unhappy marriage ( Devdas), or about the struggle of a poor rural family to get a small piece of land (Do Bigha Zameen); Roy drawaing on Bengali themes explored areas which would be difficult to do today; Devdas is an especially interesting figure combining themes of social conservatism, caste oppression and middle-class hypocrisy, and is an iconmic figure in Bengali culture pupularised by Sarat Chandra Chattopadyay's 19th century novels. this theme is carried forward in the films of Guru Dutt, his Pyassa ( Thirst) was a surprise hit, considering the damining indictment of the Indian urban middle-classes it gave: the protagonist in the film a poet turns his back on his urban prosperous family sickened by the hypocrisy and greed such a world represents and basicially drinks himself to death, which dutt himself went on to do disappointed by the nature of Nehruvian India. Of course such a film would not find a ready audience in India today, and therein lies the real problem.


:: Conrad Barwa 2:46 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Lagaan & Monsoon:

I think that perhaps it might be interesting to discuss two Indian films which are currently making their rounds in the Western markets: Lagaan & Monsoon Wedding. Monsoon Wedding is the first Indian film in 44 years to win the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival; and Lagaan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

Lagaan is supposed to be an allegory of India's colonial struggle, while Monsoon is an exploration of different kinds of love in a large yuppie household in contemporary India. I found both films quite amusing but ultimately disappointing in their characterization of the Indian polity. Let me point out two elements:

1. In Lagaan the Dalit is portrayed as handicapped and generally lacks the ability to speak for himself. In fact the entire motley crew that makes up the film is generally mute relative to the lead Hindu character and the overwhelmingly Hindu townsfolk. If this is an analogy of the Independence struggle, it does not shed great light on why this spirit of cooperation fell apart during and after the struggle for Independence.

2. In Monsoon we see Dubai, the foreman, portrayed essentially as the monkey demi-god (Hanuman). He has limited wisdom but a boundless heart. While the love story between Dubai and Alice, the Christian maid servant, is the most interesting of the sub-plots in the film, we get very little development of either character. It seemed to me that Meera Nair was more interested in foregrounding the rather cliche, and banal lives of the upper middle class family rather than exploring the avenue that presented the greatest opportunity to humanize the characters in the film. She also portrayed the chaotic life of the city with dark-foreboding while the compound was an magical garden populated by nymphs and satyrs. This is a particularly classist portrayl of social life in India. Only the middle-class would view life outside their compound as menacing.

Both of these films project an Image of India that ex-patriate Indians want to see portrayed. To the extent that we have been subjected to gloomy pictures of poverty or crass Bollywood materialism, these films do break new ground. But I worry that they portray two inaccurate images: one of unity and the other of prosperity. Unity and prosperity is not the experience of the overwhelming majority of the population in the subcontinent. Given the nature of tokenism in the West it is unlikely that space will be created for more complex and contending images of contemporary South Asia.

:: Vikash Yadav 12:38 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

The Social Construction of Religion & Caste:

What is fascinating is the ways in which the Colonial construction of a homogenous Hinduism also reified the varna caste system. I think it is quite difficult for most South Asians to accept the idea that the current configuration of the caste system is a legacy of the British Raj. At the same time, it is only by accepting the social reality of the caste system that backward castes have been able to mobilize as a force in Indian politics. What is most amusing is that urban Brahmins and Banias want to discard the caste system at the historical moment when the caste system is being used against them through the policy of reservation (or affirmative action). I think the caste system cannot be sublated without a dialectical conflict between the Brahmin/Banias and the rest of the Backward Castes; the caste system will not go away by wishful thinking. This conflict between the dominant and the dominated will have to be repeated in each of the major religious communities. I wonder if you could comment on this.

On the Use of Force:

I understand your hesitation to endorse the use of force to ground secularism and democracy, but I would add that I believe the use of physical and ideological force must be accountable to the State in some manner. I would like to explore the ways in which liberal societies rest on physical force whether visible (e.g., police, military) or ossified (e.g., laws, markets, religion, architecture, etc.) at a later point. Perhaps we could agree for now that secularism (and democracy) rest ultimately upon faith and secondarily upon the willingness to use force. My general concern is the unwillingness of secularists to use force when they exist in an agonistic realm where their opponents are more than willing to use force to establish their visions.

The art of statecraft involves understanding that the use of force creates resistance. Wise rulers need to know how to use force to maximize social objectives while minimizing destabilizing social resistance. If you show me a secular democracy where the electorate are alienated and disillusioned while fundamentalist forces are on the rise, then I will show you how those rulers did not understand the art of statecraft and created an ungovernable polity.

Your Lacanian understanding of "belief and desire" emodying "a certain lack" that we strive to fill with differing ideologies and philosophies is quite sharp (one could write a dissertation on that idea alone), and we should pursue this theme at some point. I do agree that secularism and democracy are just two ideologies that must satisfy (or at least continuously defer satisfaction - since satisfaction can only come with death) in order to be viable. Our difference is that I emphasize the role of statecraft in satisfying our desires, while you emphasize the role of the rational. My problem is that I do not believe in Enlightenment reason and I do not believe in the idea of "free-consent" as the basis of political legitimacy.

On the religious Roots of Secularism:

I agree with your insightful comment that secularism often emerges as a disenchantment (a la Max Weber) of a ruling or dominant ideology. I agree that a secular ideology cannot be grounded on disenchantment as the religious base may be "re-enchanted" by political entrepreneurs. This is why secularism must be thought through.

:: Vikash Yadav 11:29 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

A short Note on the Modern Construction of Hinduism

I would like to point out some aspects of the constructed nature of Hinduism which was heavily influenced by Orientalist and colonial notions of religion. In particular, there are two ways in which British colonisation contributed to this process. First in localising the core of the Indic tradition in certain Sanskritic texts and second by the tendency to define Indian religion in terms of a normative paradigm of religion based upon contemporary Western understandings of the Judeo-Christian tradition. These two processes overlap each other and some may argue they represent a single phenomenon - the Westernisation of Indian religion, or what some scholars have called the Semiticisation of Hinduism.

1. Although there are many key texts which are the basis for much of the Indic tradition, there is no single foundational text which could facilitate an understanding of the Indic tradition as a whole. Protestant emphasis upon the text as the locus of religion placed a particular emphasis upon the text as the locus of religion and this in turn played a key role in the Orientalist understanding of what colonial administrators understood to be Hinduism. Many of the early translators of the Indic sacred texts were Christian missionaries who, in their translations and critical editions of the Indian works, effectively constructed uniform texts and homogenised canon. The oral and the "popular" aspect of Indic tradition was either ignored ort decried as evidence of the degradation of contemporary Hindu religion into superstitious practices that bore little relation to the authorised texts. This attitude was easily assimilated into the Puranically derived and brahminnical belief in the age of Kaliyug.

A good example of this was William Jones' attempt to translate the Dharmasastras in the belief that these represented the law of the Hindus and would enable him to circumvent the "bias" of the native pundits. The problem with this of course was that the Dharmasatras were only representative of a priestly elite and not of the Hindus as a whole. Even within these texts there was no notion of a unified Hindu community but rather an acknowledgement of a plurality of local, occupational and caste contexts in which different customs and rules applied. The collusion with many members of the Brahminnic elite in this project also led to a particular brand of Sanskritised and orthodox interpretation - even the texts selected were Vedic and brahminnical ones which were seen to be central and foundational to the "essence" of Hinduism. C. Bayly, especially has cogently described and exposed the extent to which the administrative and academic demand for the literary and ritual expertise of the Brahmins placed them in a position of direct contact and involvement with their Imperial rulers - one of the reason why colonial authority tended to see braminnical literature and ideology with that of all Indic traditions as a whole.. The search for an ecclesiastical model based on European structures of religious authority led to a natural deference to the brahminnical castes. The latter already convinced of the degeneration of contemporary Indian civilisation in the era of Kaliyug, were more than amenable to the rhetoric of reform.

The Brahminnical religions themselves of course had already been active in the appropriation o non-brahminnical forms of worship long before the Muslim and European invasions. Much of orthodox Sanskritic culture and religion was based on the assimilation of these indigenous and chthonic traditions - a fact that is deliberately overlooked today. Of course the educated and elite Brahmin caste benefited from a modern construction of a unified Hindu community focusing upon Sanskritic forms of religion - which for them represented a victory of the brahminnical forms of religion over the "tribal" and the "local". This newness of modern Hinduism has been noticed by Indian historian and sociologists: Romila Thapar has referred to it "syndicated Hinduism" in its combination of upper caste attitudes and the Islamic and Christian influences. Veena Das has described the "Semitification" of Hinduism, as Hinduism was reinterpreted in a manner conducive to Judeo-Christian conceptions of the nature of religion. This new form of Hinduism is characterised by n emerging universalistic strand that focuses on proseylitisation (e.g. neo-Vedanta sects and Sathya Sai Baba) as well as the "fundamentalist" and Revivalist elemnets, which focus more on the historicity of the human incarnations of Vishnu such as Rama and Krishna, the sacrality of their purported birthplaces and an antagonistic attitude towards non-Hindu religions (especially Indian Muslims)

This has some overtones of what the Christian missionaries and colonial Orientalists assumed to be the natural state of affairs: one of which was that distinctive religions could not exist without frequent antagonism, the doctrinal liberty of Indian religions remained a mystery without the existence of an overreaching religious framework that could untie all Indian under one single religious tradition. This was the reason that the diverse Indic sects and Hindu traditions were assumed to be one religion - how else could their peaceful co-existence be explained colonial thinkers argued. Failure to transcend a model of religion based on the monotheistic exclusivism of Western Christianity thereby resulted in the imaginary construction of a single religion called "Hinduism". Of course, the classification of Hindus under a single religious rubric made colonial control and manipulation all that much easier. The lack of an ecclesiastical structure, diverse traditions and no single textual authority was seen as part of the contradictory nature of Hinduism as a religion - a religion which was in need of organisation along firm doctrinal and homogenous lines, a religion which needed to be purged of superstitious and "folk-lore" elements which were incompatible with the "high" culture of Sanskritic Hinduism.

This led to the conception that Hinduism had become corrupted from its original classical glory as reflected in the "foundational" texts of the Vedas and the Gita - all taken to be unproblematic representations of the true Hindu religion. The perceived deviation of actual Hinduism from its idealised form, as represented in the selected texts, created the belief that Hindu religion had stagnated over the centuries ands was therefore in need of reformation. The gap between the original ideal Hinduism and the actual practice of Hinduism was eventually filled by the rise of what we now call "reform" movements which arose in the 19th century - the Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj and Ramkrishna Mission. All textbooks in India describe these movements as reform movements. This representation however, falls into the trap of seeing pre-colonial Hindu religion through colonial spectacles. When combined with the highly questionable per iodisation of Indian history of an Ancient Hindu India which was the golden age of classical Hinduism, succeeded by a Mediaeval Muslim India where the Islamic invasions caused Hinduism to stagnate and retreat losing its inner dynamism and finally the period of renewal and reform with the arrival of the West. Such a classification is basically Orientalist in nature and owes its origins to James Mill's notorious multi-volume history of India. This problematic and pervasive view of Indian history reflects a Victorian and post-Enlightenment faith in the progressive nature of history. Thus Hinduism is allowed in the 20th century to enter the privileged arena of world religions, having finally come of age in a global context after being reformed and disciplined by Western scholars and administrators.

2. One can illustrate the arbitrary nature of this homogenisation of Hindu traditions under the banner of Hinduism. Let us apply the same rubric to the Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. If we take these three religions to be "sects" or denominations of a single religion one can point to certain common factors: a shared geographical origin, monotheism, a common ancestry, a tendency towards prophetism, an acceptance of linear history and the shared ideas of a theological framework with notions of: a single God, the devil, paradise, creation, the status of man within the workings of history and a reverence for the Hebrew bible. Against this one can also point out that there is no common founder for these religions, no single doctrine that is valid for all adherents, no uniform religious ritual or ecclesiastical organisation and of course no agreed idea of the nature of god. In some sense, this is analogous to the restriction of the label Hinduism to the Indic traditions, which existed before the arrival of colonialism. . However, by the 19th and 20th centuries Hindus no longer objected to the postulation of a single religious tradition as a way of describing their beliefs and practices - unlike Jews, Muslims, and Christians who remain very protective of their own distinct group identities. This reflects not just the influence of Imperial control but was a vital part of the Nationalist movement - freedom from colonial rule was seen by many as being inconceivable without the unification of India along nationalistic and cultural lines. Thus, before 1947 it does not make sense to talk of a religion called Hinduism, that could be taken to represent the common beliefs of most Indians. Today the sittuation is different as there is a loose cultural entity that we can call ~ Hinduism. Thus, from the 19th century onwards-Indian self-awareness has resulted in the development of an intellectual and textually based "Hinduism" which is then 'read back' into Indian history.

It is ironic that almost all nationalist discourse accepted the homogenisng concepts of nationhood and "Hinduism", which ultimately derived from the Imperial adversaries they spent so many years fighting.

:: Conrad Barwa 11:05 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Re: Principles of Secularism:

I completely agree with you that Secularism is a religion and should be seen as such. The unwillingness to do so is a problem for both liberals and leftists; this stance is all too often confused with the usual distance accorded to a ruling or dominant ideology that is not shared or taken seriously by large swathes of society. In this sense, the attitude of many self-professed secularists reminds of the attitude by many Greek and roman philosophers who were atheists or agnostics, as indeed many in such societies were amongst the citizenry but where certain rules and rituals were nonetheless scrupulously observed in form. A curious analogy to the Kantian imperative - feel free to argue and dissent in private but in Public obey the Law!!! Relying on such an ironic distance is inherently dangerous as it relies too much of the secularisation of the religious tradition it emerges in. Both Christianity and Hinduism have such elements within their history - one of the main 8 schools of philosophical though in classical Hinduism is explicitly atheist in tone and has a solid materialist foundation, whereas the slow process of secularisation has already been extensively documented in Europe. The danger here is that such an "organic" secular culture depends heavily on the syncretic and open nature of the religious philosophical base it emerges from and when that base becomes radicalised or mobilised politically the basis for secularism is undercut and weakened.

That there needs to be a commitment to secularism as a belief and ideology I think is correct, this reminds me very much of Kuhn's dictum that paradigms of thought are only replaced not when the basis for them are disproven and they no longer accord with observed empirical phenomenon but only when an alternative paradigm that can incorporate the new observations is put forward. In this way there is a gap that must be actively filled in the Symbolic political order which can only be filled by a concrete and active ideology of Secularism if it is to endure any challenges to its legitimacy from religious nationalism.

Of course what this lays bare is the fact that there no position which does not have an "irrational Kernel" which resists rationalisation and must be taken on faith; this is not a bad thing as it will aggressively mark out the boundaries for religious interaction in society. The failure to understand this is part of why many Indian historians cannot understand how periods where religious harmony and exchange such as in Ranjit Singh's Sikh kingdom or attempts to develop a basic state religion such as Akbar's own personal blend of Hindu and Muslim traditions can be so easily overturned - yet this underlines the difference between tolerance and secularism. The former is dependent on the acceptance and absence of conflict amongst religions while the latter actively combats such conflict and limits it.

As regards your second point, I agree with the broad thrust of your comments but would like to consider some issues. All religions can be and need to be deconstructed and understood critically. Of course given the dominance of Hinduism in India this has led to disproportionate emphasis being placed on studying the anomalies of Hinduism, more needs to be done on Islam, but Christianity is too marginal within India I feel to warrant such a treatment and the same can be said for Buddhism - these religions need to be assessed and deconstructed but that is a task relevant more to countries where they are the dominant religion. Secularists do also fall into the trap of painting a golden age but in my experience this is usually either a pre-colonial utopia where the view that before colonialism there was little conflict between Muslims and Hindus and it was only with the coming of the British who used a pernicious divide and rule strategy that these vicious religious chauvinism emerged. The second golden age is held to be the Nationalist movement, I frequently was told even by soft-line Hindutva supporters that during the Nationalist movement "there was no difference between Hindu and Muslim and we were all one", it is remarked with regret that once this Nationalist fervor passed and the mass movement was taken over by political leaders religious differences were manipulated by Native leaders as well as the British. These two golden ages are a complementary couple one harking back to a blissful pre-colonial communal harmony in an essentially conservative vision of an idealised static past and the second nostalgic for the revolutionary fervour which could overcome sectarian boundaries and where the "good fight" acted as a unifying force against a common enemy. Unfortunately, both are false views of history, which share one thing in common: colonialism and the British are frequently abused as the agents, which introduced the evils of communalism into the sub-continent on an unaffected populace undivided by religious hatred. While I think it is accurate to scrutinise the role of the British, we must do so as the latter were the bearers of modernity and a new socio-economic order which transformed society and polity; the very fact that it was so easy to be divided and ruled points the weakness of the supposed pre-colonial solidarity that is meant to have existed. Similarly, while the Nationalist movement did see a suppression of religious differences and a joining together of diverse communities - especially in the more radical and revolutionary wings of the movement, this was also the birth period of modern Hindutva ideology - we must not forget that Veer Sarvarkar was a committed anit-0colnial revolutionary jailed for indulging in violent anti-British activities: a whole host of other Nationalist leaders who were at the forefront of the struggle also were key figures in stimulating and arousing a chauvinistic idea of a Hindu community - Tilak in Maharastra in fostering the Ganpati festival and mobilisng an aggressive and powerful Marathi Hindu identity is a good example. This and many other aspects of the Mainstream Nationalist struggle can be illuminated to show how the birth of much modern Hindu consciousness and the seeds for Hindu-Muslim discord was sowed at the same time as the anti-colonial agitations - a seed whose fruit grew faster as the demise of British colonial control approached. The tragedy of Partition in my view belied the claim of Nehru's era to be a golden age for secularism: the beast of communal violence had shown it's ugly head in partition and could not be tamed by a shallow secularism with weak foundations.

However, a deeper concern remains this is the proper role of religion in society and history. After all most societies have not been secular for very long and I wonder about whether a secularism that is really an alternative religion can hold its own against the attractions of a doctrinal faith. I would argue that part of the ideological attraction of most religions lies in the precise impossible nature of their claims to found a new and ideal order - we all know that this order can never be practically reached in the here and now by part of the allure of fundamentalisms are the simple answers they provide and the promise of a better life or better world. Beside such promises the attractions of the established political order and secularism can appear staid and weak: what I am trying to get at is that there is the need to capture an element of the Imaginary fantasy in all ideologies for them to be attractive and influential on a wide level and I am unsure thast secularism can do this. Can one say that the one reason secularism has ben a relative success in the West is because most of these societies are essentially a-religious - what then does this mean if secularism if transplanted to societies where religions are vibrant.

There is another point of interest and this is that in some senses the Indian secualrist project is unique- no other country has attempted to create and maintain a democratic and secualr polity whichj contain more than one major religion and wherre there are significant minortiy religions. In Europe and the USA, the main differences were between rival sects of the same religion and non-christian religions have been associated manily with the arrival of immigrants and is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most Christian sects within these polities accepted the supremecists power of the secualr state - the true test for these countries will be the growing immigrant population who will bring religions less friendly to a secualr and omnipotent state. In this sense no other conutry has had to what India is doing on the same scale; given the recent events and the rising tide against immigrants in western Europe who are held to threaten a way of life that is rarely defined but ususlally assumed to be predominantly white and Christian and therefore under "attack" Western secualrism may begin to buckle.

the only part of your post I disagree with is the reliance on force which underpins the enforcement of secularism and indeed democracy. I refuse to believe that the ultimate gurantor of these principles is force - of course force is necessary and an integral part ensuring stability but it is not in my view the basic element which supports a democratic state or indeed a secular one. After all it is possible to have a society with a formal democracy and secularism but where the electorate are alienated and disillusioned from the system and where fundamentalism fluorish underground. Force can ensure the formal and ritual observation of the norms of democracy and secularism but for these principles to fucn tion as valuers and ideologies they need that vital lelement of belief and actual practice to give them legitimacy and value. Belief and and desire embody a certain lack in the social and symboloic order, a lack which we strive to fill with differing ideologies and philosophies; democracy and secularism being just two amognst many, any ideology/philosohy that does not recognise this and address it will not be viable.

<i>Word-Gems are our sole wealth,
We strive to wield them like weapons,
Our very life is the Word.
Words are the riches we give away to the people.
Tuka says the word is God.
Let us Honour and Worship the Word.

Tukurama, 12th Century Marathi Bhakti poet.


:: Conrad Barwa 1:11 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Principles of Secularism:

I would argue that an intellectually grounded secularism must first accept the following principles:

1. Secularism is a religion. Secularism is the religion of the State (not the government). Secularism is the religion of the public sphere and as such relegates all other religions to the private sphere (to the extent that this artificial construction of social life must be maintained).

It is from this principle that secularism can be built up. I think it will be difficult for many liberals to swallow. A great deal of confusion will come from the idea of a religion of the State. But I think it should be clear that I do not mean the ruling government or even the constitutional regime per se. The State in this formulation must be considered as the common public life of the people usually residing in a given territory. [We can expound on this definition later]

However, we cannot make an honest argument about secularism without admitting that its first principles must be taken on faith. We can expound on why secularism is intellectually superior and more pragmatic, but first we must take its importance on faith.

I would propose a second principle for secularism that should follow:

2. Revelation is filled with the seeds of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Foundational moments/ages are mythical constructions.

Religions that harken to a golden age (or Ram or Muhammad or whoever) need critical deconstruction. I agree with those who use history as a weapon against the ideological claims of religious fundamentalists (e.g., your discussion of the Holy Cow myth). My problem with the "rabid Marxists" is that they are not rabid enough. The same critical logic must be applied to Islam, Christianity, etc. In other words, no religion should be exempt from critical deconstruction. Religions based on "revelation" also need to be critically analyzed in their claims. The tools of deconstruction should be employed to destroy fallacy of the transparency of language (spoken or written). Secularism as a religion must also avoid painting a golden age (i.e., Indian secularists must not glorify the Nehruvian era as one of peace and harmony).

Secularism is not a principle of peace, it must conceive of the political sphere as an agonistic realm. Secularism must jealously guard its status and position by critically deconstructing all other religions. Secularism allied with the government requires the use of the physical and ideological apparatus of those organizations to achieve its ends. Secularism is rational and should convince the intelligent, but secularism (like democracy) is grounded upon the ability to use force.

I look forward to your commments.

:: Vikash Yadav 10:27 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

What is to be done?:

The response of the Left to the rise of Hindu fundamentalism is a complex picture. On the one hand I agree with you that the rise of the BJP and communalism caught much of the Left especially the organised parties by surprise. But then the two have always been old enemies. In the first non-Congress government at the centre it was the insistence of the non-Jan Sangh Janata Dal that all memebers of the coalition who were also members of communal parties should reisgn from the coalition - this led to the crisis which saw the fall of the Moraji Desai govt. Again when the Bofors agitation was at its height and VP Singh was putting together his grand alliance against Rajiv Gandhi's Congress, the Left parties refused to join the coalition and instead supported it from the outside, Leftist leaders refused even to share election platforms with BJP leaders during the campaign - a remarkable step given the anti-Congress fervour at the time and the high proirty given to ousting the incumbent govt. The BJP knows the chasm between it and the left parties and violence between the two is endemic, partly because unlike any other party both sides have very tightly organised and disciplined body of cadres. On the other hand this instrangience and quite principled refusal to ally with the BJP - something that can only be said of the Samajwadi party as every other party has made comprises witht he BJP at some time or another, is combined with the failure by the Left to mount a concerted effort to repudiate the BJP programme.

However, there is another arguement to be made which is that too much attention is paid by scholars to critique the cultural and ideological programme of the BJP. there has been a torrent of this literature recently: in part this is an old tradition outstanding Marxist historians such as DD Kosambi have done pioneering work in this field and the controversy over school textbooks that were deemed to be anit-hindu in the late 1970's testifies to the strength of independent minded research that was carried out under the auspices of the Indian Council for Historical Research - not for nothing did BJP ideologues accuse many bodies such as the ICHR as being packed full of rabid leftists. On a wide arena of subjects such as the role of Women in Hindutva organisations, the role of Sati, the effects of religious tele-serials such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata on encouraging the emergence of a Hindu consciousness and textual criticism of many of the Vedic sources and Puranic have all contributed towards puncturing myths perpetuated by the Hindu right. Even now certain controversies rage, DN Jha's book the "Myth of the Holy Cow" was publicly burned for arguing that beef was consumed quite widely in Ancient India. These forays to deconstruct and critically understand the emergence of Hindu practices and belief has important part to play in exposing the shallow nature of most assertions by the Hindu right about Indian history and culture. The fiercest assault on Hinduism I know of is Ambedkar's magnum opus, entitled " The Riddles of Hinduism" published as part of his coillected works by the Government of Maharastra, it was deemed too controverisal to be published in his lifetime and was delayed for many years due to the fear of a Hindu backlash, in the end it was given a low-key dissemination as just one volume of Ambedkar's prolific work. It is a great starting place for anyone looking to critique orthodox Hinduism and is all the more powerful for being writen by an insider and a radical. Ambedkar was criticised for providing an almost semi-mythological account of the origins of the caste system and ancient Hindu society, but he understood that to combat a myth it is useless to disprove its basis in history alone; only by replacing it with a new myth to put in its place can the old be destroyed and replaced. However, one could argue that such a preoccupation with the cutltural and ideological superstructure of the Hindutva project ignores much of the economic reality, espeically since the reforms, and there is a case for saying that the real battle is being neglected while attention is preoccupied by the cultural battles. Comparitively liitle work has been done on the class nature of the fundamentalismand the economic interests at play.

As for secularism you are right about the overdependence on links to one charismatic individual - Nehru. More damage was done by the political games played by his daughter and grandson who abused the rhetoric of secularism to play minroity-majority games with the electorate. The intellectual foundations were indeed weak and a firmer base needs to be sought. The old Nehruvian liberals believe in the Nehruvian project of secularism and see the current crisis as due to political mismanagement and the decay of the insitutions meant to uphold the principle of secularism. What they cannot discern is the weak base carved out secularism as an ideology and the real passion that religion and the sense of belonging to a religious group arouses. The potential for using religious groups as electroal blocks was written into the consitution which prescribed different rules for different minorities and laid the ground for a majority-minority mentality to endure into the future and the contradictions over the project of nation-building and citizenship and the differences inscribed into the way the state itself regarded its citizens. Given the tragedy of Partition it is surprisng that the constituional assembly and the ealry national leaders did not take firmer steps to prevent a re-emergence of religious conflict. The other tack take by critics hostile to both the Nehrviasn project and to fundamentalism is to decalre themselves as anti-secualrists and put the blame on the state for trying to artifically suppress and regulate religion. In this view the BJP and Hindu fundamentalism is a distortion of real Hinduism, while those who hold this view are staucnh Hindus/Muslims/Christian etc. they hold the Sangh Parivar and other fundamentalist organisations in contempt for misusing religion for political ends. I frequently heard the complaint from Hindus that those Kar Sevaks who demolished the Ayodhya Mosque were not real Hindus. This position is quite a complex one and has several different strands, containing elements of a quietist approach to politcs and religion, believing that while the latter is superior to the former any attempt to mix the two will inevitably contaminate the latter, it also reflects the syncretic nature much religious pratice as both Hindus and Muslims frequent each others' shrines, the Bhakti and Sufi cults are the offshoot of this intemringling.This approach eschews the issue of secularism and challenges the agenda of the Hindu right head on and is nothing less than a battle over the nature of Hinduism, as these anti-secualarists refuse to believe that they are represented or are spoken for by the Sangh organisations. Of course the personal and restricted nature of this kind of belief means that it is slow to rise to the challenge of fundamentalism, and could crucially underestimate the power of inflammatory use of religious symbolism and rhetoric on a mass level. However, in the long run this poses a serious threat to the Hindutva programme as it satrikes at the heart of their strength ideologically and socially, this was the threat that Gandhi posed to the hindu right in his lifetimeand why he was hated by them. The last major response I can see is what I would term the nationalist stance; which downplays religious differences and social identities in favour of a primary identity as Indian citizens. Embedded in such a view is the idea that a real dissection of suposed essentialist religious coomunites are a multiplicty of contradictory interests and indentities. Sectarian divides, caste divisions and ethnic differences cannot all be solved by an appeal to religion: the best antidote to the two nation theory these adherents would say is the seccession of Bangladesh from Pakistan and the contued conflicts in both India and Pakistan, the basis for this view is the inability of religion alone to provide a stable of adequate basis for nationhood or citizenship. I have only outlined a selection of repsonses that I have being provided by those concerned with the rise of fundamentalism, there are obviously many more viewpoints are being put forward but I have highlighted those I feel are the most powerful and influential.

The one weakness the left does have in facing the Hindutva challenge is that most leftists by temperment and personal belief are quite anti-religious and atheists. Hinduism especially being a question mainly of lived practice, many leftists have distanced themselves and have little sympathy with religious symbolism and appeals. this has created a gulf between the responses put forward by the Left, which is essentially a-religious and can't fully understand the potent appeal of religions for the masses. It is not enough to write off the appeal of religion as the sigh of the opprssed creature or the opium of the masses (if anything in India Cinema not Religion is the true opium of the masses) as unlike opium religion is the basis for concrete politcal and social action. This heuristic failure to understand the importance of religion I think is an important factor behind the Left's inability to come to provide a robust riposte. As India is still a very religious society, an adequate concept of secularism and treatment of religion is crucial. It has been said by Western tourists that in India one can see something that has disappeared from the West - large numbers of people passionate about religion. This indeed is the key for it is unimaginable that Nietzsche' madman can walk into a temple and declare that God is Dead - because in India when the Madman speaks he speaks with the voice of God. Until thinkers opposed to the Hindutva project understand the role that religion plays in most peoples' everyday lives and the potency it's appeal has, a proper secularist response to the Hindutva challenge will not be forthcoming.


:: Conrad Barwa 1:37 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Yes Mr. Prime Minister?

From Indianest

:: Vikash Yadav 9:23 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

What is to be done?:

Conrad, thanks for your comments and analysis. I think you are right on target -- the prospects for unseating the BJP appear slim in the short run. But to be honest, my aims are not just political. What is needed is a much broader challenge to the ideas of the Hindutva brigade. I would say that this will require a sustained critique that encompasses the cultural and economic spheres of social life in India. What is needed is a new vision, a reformation if you will.

Unfortunately, the state ideology of secularism (not unlike the economic policy of socialism) in India was linked far too closely with a charismatic leader; secularism lacked an intellectual foundation in India. I think it is time to rethink the concept of secularism in India.

It seems to me that many on the Indian left have taken the ideas of the Hindutva too lightly for too long; and they have failed to engage in the daily cultural battles. Even when esteemed professors from Delhi University such as Romila Thapar come to give talks in the US, they refuse to allow the media to cover their comments. I think it is time for the left inside and outside of India to stop hiding and start fighting the good fight.

:: Vikash Yadav 9:31 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Re PM's Speech:

Vikash, there is no simple answer to your question about the legitmicay of the BJP. The short answer would be that the regional parties will tend to ally with the largest single party in the Lok Sabha or the one most likely to for the government. Given recent parliamentary histroy coalitions with one big partner and several smaller regional ones tend to be more stable than a group of small regional parties: this is why the United Front always semed more unstable than the NDA even though the number of parties in the NDA is much higher and more disaprate. What is lacking is the presence of an alternative federal party that can pose a challenge to the BJP, the Congress is not in any shape to play this role and has disappeared from most states while the Janta Dal has imploded into several competing factions who can only be efective at a national level if they are united. The other problem is that there is a peculair electoiral geography to the BJP led alliance as the BJP tends to be weak or non-existent in those states where regional parties are in power - the South and the East and therefore unlike the Congress is not in direct competition for power with most regional parties. this may change over time.

Of course where there is a sizable Muslim population and where caste divsions are strong the BJP tends to be strong but not always able to gain power Uttar Pradesh is the best example of this. Supporting the BJP can also cost regional parties, this was touted as the reason for the collapse of Trinamul Congress in the last elections in West Bengal as Muslims deserted the party for joining the NDA, of course this wouldn't explain why the TDP can feel free to ally with the BJP despite the significant Muslim population in Andhra Pradesh. However, one can ask in many states such as Tamil Nadu where the two main opposed parties ( the DMK and the AIDMK) are perfectly willing to ally with the BJP according to their needs, what alternative do many secular or Muslim voters face? One must also bear in mind that some regional parties are very much in synch with the Hindutva programme such as the Shiv Sena in Maharastra.

Lastly there is an ugly aspect of the desire for power which dictates the need for power with the BJP on several levels. What else can explain the alliance with the National Front in the NDA, a predominantly Muslim party that is meant to represent Kashmiryat interests can hardly be said to be compatible with the aims of the BJP given its view on Kashmir. Even more unprincipled one could argue is are the occasional alliances between the BSP and the BJP in Uttar PRadesh, these two parties based on completely competing ideologies and politcal programmes have fromed the state government several times, a similar tale can be told of the Paswan section of the Janta Dal in Bihar. It is ironic that in India's most populous state the two main low-caste parties find it almost impossible to ally with each other as opposed to the BJP. Elections cost money and all parties need to defray the costs of winning, which they can only do after coming to power, a principled rejection of isolating the BJP like the sceanrio when the BJP first tried to form the government for 13 days is unlikely to be repeated. The only legitmacy I can see the BJP has electorally is that it has assumed the mantle of the Congress as a supposedly centrist party but one which is strongly biased towards the dominat social groups and towards the Hindu majority. In this there is a strong overlap between the Congress and the BJP, indeed much of the current BJP is made up of the saffron wing of the Congress - this can be seen by the large-scale defections of sections of the Congress to the BJP in states such as Uttar Pradesh - brings to mind the quote from Arundhati Roy's pamphlet on Power Politics " the BJP only does by day what the Congress before did by night". After many of the origins of the current crisis from the Ayodhya temple to the blatant use of religious imagery in elections can be traced back to the Congress era of dominance. While the Congress used the legitmacy conferred by its leadership of the Freedom Movement to push its majoritrian agenda the BJP is trying to construct a similar legitmacy based on the idea of a single Hindu community. One can already see the rewriting of history, already the ICCR volumes on the offical history of the Freedom Struggle are being revised to expand the role supposedly played by the RSS in the anti-colonial agitations and leaders such as Vajpayee whose involvement in the Quit India agitation is controversial issue have artificially expanded bios which document a personal history supposedly spent fighting the Imperial power.

This does lead me to ask a question which remains puzzling for me. a key aspect of the BJP's support seems to be is strong constituency amongst the urban trading and business classes of north India - this is a pattern that dates back to earlier incarnations of the BJP such as the Jan Sangh. Indeed the enthusiasm for the BJP amongst the industrial and business class as a whole seems very strange to me as it cannot be based on the BJP' economic agenda or record of governance. Yet it is true that especially in the Hindi belt but also in other states such as Gujerat the traditional business communites tend to back the BJP very strongly, apart from anythingelse this tends to give the BJP a strong warchest for campaigning. there is an unholy nexus between these urban business classes and the BJP and the former is one of the enthusiastic audiences for the more extreme rhetoric of the BJP. Why this should be so remains an enigma to me.

:: Conrad Barwa 8:58 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Re: PM's Speech:

Conrad, I agree with much of your post, although I am not quite so pessimistic. The real question seems to be what is the basis of legitimacy for the BJP in the eyes of its coalition partners? (In other words, what is it going to take to get the BJP out of power?)

Why don't coalition members defect from the National Democratic Alliance? Many coalition parties have little stake in supporting radical Hindutva ideas, especially the regional parties -- so this can't be about ideology. (I will agree that "pragmatic" politicians have wrongly convinced themselves that there is a reasonable BJP and a nutty RSS, but that does not explain why coalition parties stick with a party that delivers so little.) Any successor government would still be a coalition government, so coalition parties would still be critical partners. So what gives?

:: Vikash Yadav 11:59 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

Re: PM's Speech:

This is only a controversial speech If you fall prey to the fallacy that there are two wings in the BJP: a liberal, humane, "acceptable" one in the guise of Vajpayee and a more hardline one in the face of Advani. Unfortunaterly this is a fiction: a fiction for those leaders of non-religious parties who ally with the BJP and use this fiction to convince themselves and thier voters that the BJP is not as bad or hardline as it is made out to be and it is also a fiction for the pampered urban middle-class which isn't really communal or fundamentalist but don't want to risk their comftable lifestyles by standing up to the government, this fiction allows them to carry on as normal and is a sop to their uneasy consciences. Those of us with eyes know that the BJP from the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya to the riots in Bombay has ridden its path to power over the dead bodies of many Muslims and Hindus.

After all this party has justified attacks on Christians in Gujarat, ignored the burning of churches in South India, closed its eyes to the harrassment of the Jain community in Rajasthan and denied the inequalities of caste and ethnicity within its own ideological boundaries; like all fundamentalist movements you are either in or you are out; those movements such as charitable work by religioius organisations in backward areas or environmental movements such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan who speak out for those marginalised by the system are persecuted. This points to the fictional nature of the Imaginary religious national community the Hindutva project is trying to construct, one which is vulnerable to the great dividers of caste and class. The periphery already seethes with unrest from the insurgent riddled jungles of the north-east to the bloody valleys of Kashmir, the legitimacy and belief in a democratic and secular Indian state is being eroded daily. The goddowns of the government bulge and groan with foodgrains yet nearly a third of the population still suffer from endemic malnutrition and procurement prices rise ever higher year after year. The much lauded reforms since 1991 have not made an appreciable dent of the scale or experience of poverty, the steel frame of the bureacracy has been corroded with the rust of corruption, the political process is widely regarded with cynicism and patronage politics is rife with parties more interested in playing games of beggar-thy-neighbour or fomenting sectarian conflict rather than seeking any real solutions.

There is an Indonesian saying: Things may seem calm on the surface but Underground the Rivers are already on Fire.

:: Conrad Barwa 7:59 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............

PM's Speech: (Aise) Muslamaan?:

I don't think much will come of current the "breach of privilege" motion in Parliament (after all this is not exactly Clintonesque perjury), but it sickens me that an Indian Prime Minister could say such things in public... even if he did attempt to restrict his comments to a small subset of the Muslim population. In case you missed it, here is the text of the controversial potion of the speech by PM Vajpayee from Tehelka.com:

What Vajpayee told Parliament he said on April 10th in Goa:

"Jahaan-jahaan (aise) Musalmaan hain woh milkar rehna nahi chaahte. Auron ke saath ghulna-milna nahi chaahte. Aur shantipoorvak dhang se apna prachar karne ke bajai, aatank se, bhay se, dara-dhamkaake, apni mat ka prachaar karna chaahte hain."

(Wherever (such) Muslims live, they tend not to live in co-existence with others, not to mingle with others; and, instead of propagating their religion in a peaceful manner, they want to spread their religion by resorting to terror, threat and intimidation).

What Vajpayee actually said on April 10th in Goa:

"Jahaan-jahaan Musalmaan hain woh milkar rehna nahi chaahte. Auron ke saath ghulna-milna nahi chaahte. Aur shantipoorvak dhang se apna prachar karne ke bajai, aatank se, bhay se, dara-dhamkaake, apni mat ka prachaar karna chaahte hain."

(Wherever Muslims live, they tend not to live in co-existence with others, not to mingle with others; and, instead of propagating their religion in a peaceful manner, they want to spread their religion by resorting to terror, threat and intimidation).

:: Vikash Yadav 2:45 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
..............