Living on the Margins. Minorities in South Asia - EURAC

Prepared in the frame of EURASIA­Net project,
funded by the Seventh Framework Programme
of the European Commission

“<strong>Living</strong> on the Margins. Minorities in South Asia”
Edited by
Rita Manchanda
South Asian Forum for Human Rights
EURASIA-Net Partners
Accademia Europea Bolzano/Europäische Akademie Bozen (EURAC) – Bolzano/Bozen,
(Italy), Brunel University – West London (UK), Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität –
Frankfurt am Main (Germany), Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (India), South
Asian Forum for Human Rights (Nepal), Democratic Commission of Human
Development (Pakistan), University of Dhaka (Bangladesh)
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community‘s
Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] under grant agreement n° 216072.
Kathmandu, September 2009
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I - Introduction
Rita Manchanda
II - Religious & Social Minorities
Table of Contents
A Long Term Contemporary View of the Muslim Situation in India
Javed Alam
Hindus in a Polarized Political Environment: Bangladesh’s Minority
Afsan Chowdhury
Religious Minorities in Pakistan: Mapping Sind & Baluchistan
Ishtiaq Hussain
Strangers in the House: Minorities in Pakistani Textbooks
Rubina Saigol
Muslims in Sri Lanka: Political Choices of a Minority
Farzana Haniffa
III - Ethno-Nationalist Assertion
Sri Lanka: Recent Shifts in the Minority Rights Debate
Jayadeva Uyangoda
Inclusion and Accountability in a ‘New’ Democratic Nepal
Mahendra Lawoti
The Challenge of National Minority Question in Pakistan
Shahid Fiaz
IV - Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
The Indigenous Peoples :Victims of the Politics of Denial
Tapan Kumar Bose
Tribal Land Alienation in Maharashtra: Legality, Illegality and Praxis
Pradip Prabhu
Legality and Pragmatism
Usha Ramanathan
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INTRODUCTION
Rita Manchanda
Majority-Minority Discourses in South Asia
The final solution- Partition 1947, did not resolve the subcontinent’s minority question. It
produced a South Asian state system of ethnic kin states where a majority in one state
was a minority across the border, entangling the minority question in the power
intricacies of inter state relations and even casting the constituent members of a minority
group as ‘proxy citizens’ of an enemy state. In the national imagination, the question of
minority rights conjured anxieties about the integrity of the nation state and true
‘belonging’- splintering into questions of nationalism vs separatism, of who is a true
citizen and who a ‘proxy citizen, of communalism vs secularism, of ‘special rights (read
‘appeasement’) vs equal rights (read ‘majority’ setting the norm) and ‘insider’ vs
‘outsider’ politics.
Some seven decades after independence, the states of South Asia are still grappling with
myriad sub-nationalities and religious communities, a profusion of linguistic, ethnic and
caste groups – all jostling for recognition and resources. The identities of such groups,
under colonial administrations, had been politicized, and during the process of
constitutional reforms in the transition to independence, such identities became more
entrenched. Democracy as practiced in these post colonial states has got articulated in the
official discourse of majority and minorities rather than transcending the politics of
numbers.
Post independence as these countries transformed themselves into modern states, the
challenge was to construct a state before the emergence of nation, of seeking to make a
‘people’ congruent with territorial borders. It produced the ‘modern’ minority
problematic. As Andreas Wimmer, coming from the domain of anthropology to political
science, argues “nationalist and ethnic politics are not just a by product of modern state
formation (built on democracy, citizenship and popular sovereignty) but that modern
principles and institutions of inclusion (of the ‘true nation’) are tied to ethnic and national
forms of exclusion, producing the ‘the other’.” i Such especially is so in multi ethnic,
multi religious and multi lingual societies.
In South Asia – a land of minorities, the challenge of pluralism is truly formidable. More
than 800 languages are spoken in the region and only 66% of the population have access
to education in their mother tongue. ii “The Minority like everywhere is a fluid identity in
South Asia,” as Tapan Bose reminds us “Its markers are language, culture, religion and
ethnicity. But the most important marker is the position of ‘non-domination’ or
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‘powerlessness’. The history of the last seven decades of state or nation making in South
Asia proves the axiom - democracies create minorities. Nation and State are majoritarian
concepts. These are also repositories of power. Access and control over these institutions
of power and the distance from these sources of power or denial of access define the
majority and the minority.” iii
The early constitutional debates of the states of the region, had reflected an awareness of
the importance of democratizing the nation to such an extent that ‘minority’ as a category
of powerlessness disappears and numbers loose their political value. However driven by
the exigencies of state power consolidation and the paranoia of the Great Partition, the
founding elite did not anchor minority rights in an expanding democratic agenda that
would have paved the way for equal rights for all peoples. Instead, state ideology and
architecture, increasingly veered towards constituting a majoritarianism. The states of the
region showed up the inability of a hegemonic collectivity to deal equitably. Sukumar
Muralidharan in his essay Media Modernity and Minorities, takes us back to Ambedkar
who, he reminds us, was not worried about a “communal majority” in the numerical
sense. “Its dominance was a matter of social power rather than numbers. Far from being
something intrinsic to the social group, the status of “minorityism” arises from the
contingent features of the political power-sharing contract.”
No doubt, Nationalism and Democracy did expand the public sphere and gave
disadvantaged groups access. But nowhere is the state a neutral umpire holding the
balance between different groups. Moreover, modern structures of governance of these
states proved to be centralizing, coercive, hegemonic and exclusionary towards the non
dominant religious, ethnic, linguistic, regional and social (caste) minorities. Admittedly,
fundamental rights are promised in all the constitutions, and within some of the
constitutions are special community rights and autonomies, territorial and non territorial.
But alongside we have a public system that can be taken over by a dominant group,
which is determined to impose its values as the norm in the name of ‘public order’, thus
making the majority’s culture, values and opinions the norm. This is evident in not only
democratically fragile regimes as Pakistan and Bangladesh but also the robust
democracies of Sri Lanka and India. In this the role of the judiciary is crucial. Sahala Zia
in her study of constitution back discrimination in Pakistan notes the “growing emphasis
on ‘protecting the rights’ of the Muslim majority, rather than those of the minorities. The
judiciary’s inclination has been to prevent a breach of peace by placing restrictions on
minority groups so as to avert provoking the Muslim majority, rather than taking
preventive or punitive action against them”.
The everyday experience of persons belonging to minority communities and indigenous
peoples is - the banality of discrimination, violence, injustice and inequality. The status of
most minorities in the region is abject. In some cases as in Bangladesh, minority
communities are poor because of their minority status. Its corollary, the discriminatory
workings of laws like the Enemy Property Act (1965) morphed into Vested Property Act
(1971). According to one estimate 43% of all Hindu families have been ‘legally’ affected
by virtue of this act. iv Sheikh Hasina’s government withdrew it in 2001. Regarding
Pakistan, Ishtiaq Hussian indicates that the number of people living below the poverty
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line states has deepened from 17 percent in 1990s to 34 per cent in 2000, and the
minorities make up a disproportionate majority. Similarly, in the case of India 13 percent
Muslim population, if rural landlessness is an indicator, Muslim landlessness is 51% as
compared to 40% for Hindus. However as Javeed Alam points out, there is no evidence
to suggest that the Indian state created poverty among the Muslims as in the case of tribal
and dispossession. “Muslim poverty is as much a result of the many intersections of
feudalism and the depredations and predatory practices of British colonial rule, as
poverty in general.” Nonetheless, the Sachar Committee Report has shown a very
disturbing congruence between Muslim habitation and deprivation of civic amenities,
public works and development infrastructure.
Democracy Deficit
In South Asia follow the tracks of the minority rights question and it will lead us back to
the “democracy deficit”, says Ranabir Samaddar, a prescient observer of the Minority
question. Recognition that minority (ethnic) groups are deficient as rights holders is
unfortunately itself, a minority perspective. More commonly, scholarly analysis and
practitioners understanding, is oriented towards interpreting even socio economic
tensions through the official categories of majority –minority identities or worked
through the discourse of ethnicity and ‘ethno-nationalism’. Social scientist Yash Ghai
succinctly captures the political continuum of an ethnically differentiated group
becoming a political category. An “ethnicity” is consolidated “when these (cultural,
religious, linguistic) markers cease to be mere means of social distinction and become the
basis of political identity and claims to a specific role in the political process or power,
ethnic distinction are transformed into ethnicity.” v Ethnic movements often have at their
core hardcore issues of social and economic justice and of public participation – but as in
the case of the case of Sri Lanka, not only do the protagonists of the ethnic conflict
articulate it in terms of essentialist ethnicity and identity, but the other minority Muslims,
too, have come to put themselves forward as an ethnicity.
Indeed the histories of the struggle of the Tamil, Naga and Chittagong Hill Tracts
peoples, map narratives of how and when a group refuses to accept at a historical moment
the identity of a minority and claims the status of a people, a nation. In the constitution of
majority - minority identities is the discourse of power. Redistribution of power lies at the
vertex of the relation between the state and ‘national’ minorities.
However, as Uyangoda in his analaysis of the changing terms of the minority rights
discourse towards privileging group rights points out, “the entrenchment of group rights
through regional autonomy would place at great risk individual civil and political rights
within the community.” Autonomous arrangements are not necessarily enhancing of
democracy. Particularly at risk are women as we have seen in the workings of the
autonomy of community personal law regimes. In addition the logic of homelands is
exclusion of the ‘other’ i.e. the non dominant minorities.
Complicating the minority question is the media mediated constitution of the public
discourse on security in which select minorities are constructed as ‘suspect’ communities.
In particular, on the march these days are cultural and military doctrines rooted in the
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theory of the ‘clash of civilizations’ and the ‘war on terror’ which have been extremely
detrimental to the rights of minorities. It is members of minority groups who are
predominantly targeted by Prevention of Terrorism and other Emergency Regulations
whether it is in India vi or in Sri Lanka. Moreover, the positioning of ‘militarized’
struggles for minority rights /ethno-nationalist assertion as ‘terrorism’, has de-legitimized
the struggles, hollowing out the socio-economic and political grievances driving them.
Fara Haniffa draws our attention to this aspect.
Also, by locating the state’s all out military action against the civilian embedded
insurgents, as part of the ‘war on terror’, as in the case of Sri Lanka’s military offensive
against the Tamil insurgent group the LTTE, the state’s brutal violations of the human
and humanitarian rights of its citizens, comes to be largely condoned by the international
community. Even more insidious is the demonstration effect of Sri Lanka’s military
victory in resolving ethno-nationalist conflicts. Why negotiate, politically? It is a model
that is being studied in India and Pakistan and does not augur well for the prospects of the
rights of minorities.
The minority question in South Asia gets constructed as a foreign policy question. As
Afsan Chowdhury states “Minorities of today’s South Asia have become proxy citizen of
the country where they are a majority rather than full citizens of their own country of
origin. So Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the madhesis in Nepal and the Tamils in
Sri Lanka are not just minorities but are looked upon as proxy Indians and imagined as a
threat or an enemy, and this is based on that state’s relationship with India.
Discrimination against them gets justified as part of the caretaking exercise against a
nationalist threat.” The founding fathers of the kin state system of South Asia aware of
the cross border minority –majority implications, mooted the ‘hostage theory’, vii i.e. ill
treatment of minority in one state would ricochet on the cross border minority. The ripple
effect is there, and in the case of Tamils in Sri Lanka, Indian state has acted. As regards
the Muslim minority or Hindu minority, Pakistan or India’s interference would more
likely to harm than benefit. Nonetheless, the state level relationships among South Asians
does influence how the minorities are treated by the state power holders.
South Asia’s majoritarian states
Recognition of a minority group is a crucial precondition for protecting minority Rights.
International Conventions, Declarations and Institutional mechanisms – provide
frameworks identifying minority rights and entitlements. But there is no consensual
international definition of who is or which group is the bearer of these rights.
Consequently, states have interpreted what constitutes a minority to suit their own
politics. Pakistan recognizes only religious minorities and not its Sind, Baluch or Pushto
nationalities and has created a new religious minority- Ahmadis. Bangladesh,
constitutionally, does not recognise that it has linguistic, religious or ethnic minorities. Its
ideological and structural orientation is as a mono-ethnic, mono-linguistic and mono
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eligious state, thus making minorities of its Hindu, non Bangla speaking and adivasi
populations.
Sri Lanka’s minority rights discourse does not include recognition of social (depressed
caste) minorities India does not list its Dalit population as a minority and state institutions
(e.g. judiciary) legitimize a homogenous Hindu identity excluding multiple sects from the
religious minority category. Constitutionally, there is the construction of religious and
linguistic minorities as a cultural category, sidestepping the issue of power and public
participation. Nepal (under the 1990 constitutional system) denied its multi-religious
character and institutionalizes exclusion of its linguistic and ethnic minorities. Bhutan in
the pursuit of a ‘One Nation, One People’ – Drupkaization’ policy pushed out a 120,000
ethnic Nepali Lhotsampas, and rejects their claims to citizenship.
A key criterion is self identification as a minority (and the group’s right to determine who
is a member of the minority). Several groups, as for example the Tamil community or the
Naga peoples of north east India, indigenous peoples of the CHT, Bangladesh - have
repudiated identity as a minority (a subordinate group) and claimed for themselves
identity (and rights) as a ‘nation’, e.g. peoples of the ‘Jumma’ nation CHT, and the
Mohajir as an ethno-nationality. None of these peoples see themselves as ‘ethnic
communities’. Each claims to be a nation. viii
South Asian states in the political organization of their plural societies have experimented
with different models from republic to constitutional monarchy, from federal
arrangements with special autonomies to unitary state structures; from multi-party
democracy to party less authoritarian and military governments; from secular to a
theocratic orientation, and from a multicultural public sphere to a hegemonic monocultural
mono ethnic one.
Whereas some polities like India, have articulated an elaborate framework of
constitutional guarantees for minority rights protection and degrees of federalism
including asymmetric autonomous structures for devolving power; in the case of others
like Pakistan and Bangladesh, the constitution itself is the source of discrimination and
victimization. In the ‘old’ Nepal. Mahendra Lawoti argues that democracy as practiced
by the upper caste hill elite (CHEM) that monopolized power in the Cabinet, the
government and political parties, institutionalized the exclusion of the ‘majority’ of the
population comprising janajatis, backward castes and women. Overlaying this was
regional disadvantage and deprivation in a highly centralized - Kathmandu centric –
polity. The ‘new’ Nepal’s constitution, it is expected, will provide for greater inclusion
and federal restructuring.
Sri Lanka’s unitary state had pursued a constitutional path of accommodating minority
rights –equal rights, some language rights and a limited degree of decentralization –
against the backdrop of the military conflict. It challenged the terms of the liberal
minority rights discourse effectively displaced the minority question with the national
question, bringing to the fore claims to ‘group rights’ as Uyangoda emphasises. The final
solution in the end was a military resolution. That can only reinforce the Sri Lanka state’s
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unitary ideology, centralized structure and Sinhala-Buddhist hegemony. Forebodings
about the likely status of minorities in the post LTTE Sri Lanka are not likely to be
allayed by Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s statement immediately after the
physical elimination of the LTTE. “There are no minority communities in this country.
There are only two communities, one that loves the country and one that does not”
(Rajapaksa May 19, 2009) It presumes that the ‘national’ question / minority question
can be decreed out of existence. Without a fundamental de-ethnicization or for that
decommunalization of the state and power sharing arrangements, the politics of numbers
will continue to haunt the states of south Asia.
South Asian states, on the whole, have been extremely wary if not hostile to devolving
power and most have evolved into unitary states with at best administrative
decentralization. Even India which has evolved a quasi federal polity with a complex
structure of special autonomies, uses the nomenclature –centre: state relations. Whereas
the constitutional debates presage wide ranging devolution of power, post partition,
federalism came to be viewed as carrying the seeds of secession and disintegration. ix
Moreover, the Nehruvian economic model under girded by centralized planning, was
predicated central control. The Indian constitution carries that unitary bias, e.g. after
distributing legislative powers in three lists, not only are residual subjects left with the
Union, its will prevails on subjects in the concurrent list. Also, the Indian parliament
keeps the right to change the boundaries of the states. India. The Indian Union is not
founded on federating units choosing to constitute a federal union.
The fifty year old struggle of the Naga peoples for self rule in the north east; Jammu
Kashmir’s erosion of constitutionally sanctioned special autonomy and the people’s
alienation and the Punjab insurgency that was rooted in issues of autonomy and power
sharing -- are but three of the most significant conflicts that testify to the Indian elite’s
centralizing and majoritarian impulse. However, the linguistic reorganization of the
Indian state system is a testimony to its capacity for accommodating plural demands.
All our states have a fundamental rights chapter in their constitution that provides for
human freedoms that apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion,
caste, creed, color or sex - subject to restrictions of ‘public order’. Fundamental Rights, it
needs to be recalled, primarily protect individuals from arbitrary state policies.
International discourses on human rights and minority rights have been braided on the
‘nation state’ building process of our post colonial states. However, historical
circumstances, the contextual specificity of ruling class ideology, and the overall
exigencies of creating a coherent ‘nation state’ in highly plural societies, has produced a
region rife with ‘minorities at risk’.
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Three National Models: Minority Rights Protection
India: Limits of Constitutionalism
“Minority Rights discourse is monopolised by Muslims. This may explain why questions about minorities are
necessarily linked in the mind with the minority problem during the British days, which gave rise to
‘communal politics’, separatism and finally partition. The Indian discourse on ‘minorities’ as concept well as
groups of people therefore gets defined and delimited by communalism versus secularism and nationalism
versus separatism. It is hardly ever placed in the perspective of mainstream human rights movement which
wants to ensure all rights for all people .”
Iqbal Ansari, Readings on Minorities (1996) x
India’s constitutional guaranteed regime of equal rights based on common citizenship and
non discrimination is mediated by a complex web of special rights and protections. There
is statutory backed creation of special territorial autonomies providing for ‘self rule’
(Jammu & Kashmir Art 370-371H); for social minorities affirmative action provision of
reservations for notified scheduled castes, hill tribes and backward classes (Part XVI,
Article 15, 16, 330 & 332); for the linguistic minorities protection of language rights
(Articles 29,347 & 350) and statehood for major linguistic groups; and for the religious
minorities a system of legal pluralism with differentiated personal law regimes, rights to
public management of religious and educational institutions.
However, such prescriptive policies of protection and ‘affirmative action’ have delivered
not equality, but the demand for more and more groups seeking the dividends that accrue
to ethnic (and caste) politics by claiming official recognition of ‘minority’ status e.g. the
OBC Gujjars in Rajasthan and Rajbhansis in Assam claiming Scheduled Tribe status to
tap designated special rights. Meanwhile, an unsympathetic majority castigates such
policies as “appeasement politics”.
Also, India’s innovative experiments in evolving a range of ethnically delimited
autonomous ‘homelands’ (even experimenting with shared sovereignty) have subsumed
secessionist demands. But without any fundamental expansion of democratic value in the
institutions at the Centre or in the autonomous unit, it inevitably has led to exclusion of
non dominant ethnic groups, and the relentless reproduction of more ethnicities and the
demand for other homelands. These autonomy institutions are more likely to reinforce
‘insider outsider politics. The result is the North East scarred in a welter of conflict lines.
As regards the schema of protection and special rights of religious minorities, Gurpreet
Mahajan, a scholar of minority rights, evaluating the impact of these provisions,
succinctly observed, that it has assured the protection of cultural identity by
“safeguarding cultural autonomy and promoting cultural diversity”; where “it has failed
is in promoting equality, non-discrimination and vitally, equity”. xi Such emphasis on
cultural identity has fostered a distortion in the community’s politics. For example, the
elite of the Muslim community has got tied up in the pursuit of identity politics, raising
with the state demands centering on issues concerning religio-cultural orthodoxy, (i.e.
religious holidays, personal law, banning books, etc.) rather than leveraging equal
opportunities in political representation, access to development, education etc. That,
argues Javeed Alam is giving way to the emergence of a ‘citizen politics’ that is
participation in democratic politics for realizing an egalitarian social ethos.
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Pakistan: Constitution based discrimination
At the other end of the spectrum, in Pakistan, the Constitution itself ends up
discriminating against religious minorities as shown up by Sahala Zia in the essay
“Discrimination in Pakistan Against Religious Minorities: Constitutional Aspects”
(Sage:forthcoming). The injunction in the Objectives Resolution that no law repugnant to
Islam could be adopted, has paved the way for all the Islamic provisions in the
Constitution, i.e. from direct stipulation of Head of State being a Muslim to indirect
discriminatory provisions via electoral oaths as well as the policy of separate electorates.
General Musharraf in 2002 ended this political apartheid.
The constitutional scheme treats Muslims as a privileged majority while religious
minorities are promised only protection. Fundamental rights are guaranteed, even special
protective provisions are stipulated, but they become meaningless in the precedence
given to the Islamic Provisions. The dual system of Federal Shariah Courts and Civil
Courts, has created an ambiguity which is manipulated to the disadvantage of religious
minorities and women as evident in the workings of the blasphemy laws and Hudood
ordinances introduced under General Zia ul Haq. In the Federal Sharia Court, a supra
constitutional body, non Muslims can neither be members nor non Muslim lawyers
appear before these Courts; Hudood Ordinance ousts the testimony of non Muslims
against a Muslim accused (and women half witness in law).
Pakistan’s crisis of political legitimacy, inevitably, prompts a renewed push towards
Islamization, especially when challenged by ethnic nationalist assertions. Pakistan’s
constitution does not recognize its ethno-nationalist’ minorities. In Pakistan, After the
founding of the state of Pakistan, or as political scientist Mohammad Waseem wryly
describes it, “when the Pakistan movement came to the bounded territory of what became
Pakistan”, the Muslim majority provinces of East Bengal, NWFP, Sind and Baluchistan
became ethnic ‘minority’ provinces in what became a Punjab-Mohajir dominated
bureaucratic and military oligarchy. Pakistan carries the legacy set in 1955 when various
provinces of West Pakistan were integrated into ‘One Unit’ to counter populous Bengali
province of East Pakistan. The secession of Bangladesh, further fuelled paranoia against
autonomy. The 1973 Pakistan constitution does not recognize non religious minorities.
More recently, Islamization (increasingly cast in the Sunni- Wahabi mode), and its
various manifestation such as Talibanization, have put pressure not only the religious
minorities but also the Muslim minorities. xii Hussain in tracking the implications of
significant demographic changes- from the 1971 war to the Afghan refugee influx,
insightfully suggests that “In Pakistan, the growing emphasis on ‘Muslimness’ has not
only caused justifiable concern among non-Muslims, but the intra-Muslim ideological
divides have also become more acute as apparent in the growing discovery of ‘enemies
from within’. This is translated in the rising incidence of Shia –Sunni violence.”
Bangladesh: hegemony of one religion and one language.
Bangladesh may have emerged from a struggle against a situation of internal colonialism,
a discriminated and disadvantaged ethnicity, but statehood is cast in a structure that is
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marked by the hegemony of one religion and one language. As Afsan Chowdhury in
Hindus in a Polarised Political Environment states, “In Bangladesh minorities in general
and the Hindu minority in particular, are not imagined as occupying a rightful and
legitimate space within the architecture of the majority’s imagination of the nation.”
Although, the new state of Bangladesh emerged as a secular polity with a constitutional
embargo on religion in politics, amendments to the 1972 constitution saw the
displacement of the principle of ‘Secularity’ with ‘Absolute trust and faith in the
Almighty Allah’. Tension between ‘Bengali nationalism’ based on language and culture
and ‘Bangladeshi nationalism’ rooted in the primacy of religion, has resulted in a steady
drift towards Islamic hegemony. Both have had exclusionary consequences for its
religious, linguistic and ethnic minorities.xiii
The Bangladesh state declared itself as a unitary and culturally homogenous nation
emphasizing the hegemony of the Bengali nation, thus excluding non Bengali Chakmas,
Marmar Tripuras and plains tribal ethnic communities that make up a little over 1% of
the population. Subsequent amendments (Art 6) declared that the citizens of Bangladesh
were to be known as Bengalees, turning the non Bengali population into ethnic
minorities. Art 3 adopted Bengali as the state language turning non Bengali speaking
populations including the urdu speaking Biharis into linguistic minorities. Art 2 made
Islam the state religion excluding the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and animist
communities.
Amena Mohsin, a scholar of Bangladesh nationalism, in several of her writings has
mapped the processes by which the rights of Bangladesh’s minorities and indigenous
peoples have been derogated, argues that constitutional provisions by implication have
“become instruments of hegemony and domination” in the hands of successive
governments. xiv Today, after 25 years armed struggle there is recognition of the special
status of hill tribals of the CHT, but the constitution does not provide any measure of
recognition to the plains tribals, the Santhals, Garos and Hajongs.
Minority Rights Challenged
The essays in this volume go beyond a mapping of the status of minorities in South Asia
and are positioned as second generation studies by authors who have been responsible for
empirically and theoretically defining the scholarly discourse on minority rights in the
region. Also, several of these essays are authored by researchers who straddle the fields
of activism and academia and therefore reach out to NGO activists as well as policy
makers intervening in the living reality of minority communities in the region.
While most of these essays are stand alone - country focused essays, together they make a
mosaic marked by the thread of common themes and perspective and cross border
resonances. They invite comparative analyses and point towards the necessity of
addressing the minority question regionally. The essays locate the minority predicament
in modern state making projects. “These states produce minorities as an essential part of
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their construction process, since the majority in producing the state also produces the
‘other’ or the minorities”, posits Afsan Chowdhury.
While the dominant trend in the field of minority rights studies has been centred on
identity politics and ‘special rights’, several of the essays shift the emphasis towards the
expansion of democratic politics, focusing on the empowering movement towards what
Javeed Alam calls ‘citizen politics’. Still others like Afsan Chowdhury and Ishiaq
Hussain bring in a political economy approach drawing attention to how socio-economic
conflicts tend to be interpreted politically. “Ethnic and communal differences are deemed
political identity markers even when the same is the product of or descriptive of
economic denials by a powerful group or forms of class behavior”.
The volume is organized around three broad but overlapping sections that focus on
religious and social minorities, ethno-national assertion and indigenous peoples. What
links ‘minority’, ‘nation’ and ‘indigenous peoples’ is there position of non dominance as
a result of that identity. Moreover, in the liberal minority rights discourse, the holder of
rights is an individual, whereas, rights discourse associated with ‘people’, ‘nation’ or as
‘indigenous peoples’ is articulated as group rights. Also as Jayadeva Uyangoda reminds
us, there a political journey when a group rejects ‘minority’ identity and claims
recognition/ rights as a ‘nation’
Javeed Alam’s “A Long-Term View of Contemporary Muslim Situation in India” has the
edge of an insider’s analysis without compromising on intellectual rigour, as he explores,
with historical depth, the changing contours of Muslim consciousness and the trend
towards a politics of democratic participation in egalitarian politics. Alam’s posits a self
avowedly contentious thesis of regionally differentiated Muslim communities moving
away from the practice a politics of difference to ‘citizen politics’ in alliance with other
similarly disadvantaged groups. “This is a matter of some importance in avoiding
absolutisation of community politics”, he emphasizes. Under-girding this participation in
the ‘secular’ politics of bourgeois equality is the emergence of a pan Muslim
consciousness that is marked by recognition of the value of a ‘secular’ orientation. This
defence of ‘secularism’ is not without ambivalence and is reflected in the contradiction
in the Muslim consciousness since the beginning of Ram Janmabhoomi and the Babri
Masjid controversy. “From the Muslim point of view, the ‘menacing’ growth of Sangh
Parivar organizations and the stints in power of Bharatiya Janata Party, have prompted
Muslim organizations, including the communal ones like the Majlis in Hyderabad or the
League in Kerala, to increasingly voice a defense of ‘secularism”.
The catalytic moment for this agentive transformation of Muslim consciousness, is V P
Singh’s exemplary act of sacrifice upholding Muslim dignity and their inalienable right to
belong to the Indian nation. Working in convergence with this was the dramatic Mandal
moment and its socially fragmenting effect in polarizing upper castes towards the
Hindutva forces. Alam argues that the conjunction of these developments was to give a
pan Indian dimension to Muslim politics and in the backdrop of menacing trishuls, to
explore, i.e. “how best can we align with the new secular trends or formations that were
emerging in the different parts of the country”.
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Rubina Saigol brings in the role of the role played by the school text book in the
internalization of the official historical narrative of the nation state and the place of
minorities. In Strangers in the House: Minorities in Pakistani Textbooks Saigol posits
that one of the biggest problems in the national tale is - ‘those who do not fit’ or ‘those
who do not fit completely’ into the national narrative. These are the minorities –
religious, ethno-national – that “the the nation can either not acknowledge or claim only
partially as they are reminders of a connection with the past that must be forgotten for the
sake of the nation’s purity”, argues Saigol.
One way of dealing with these uncomfortable presences is to turn them into cameos,
those who belong, the insiders, are collapsed into an imagined homogeneity of goodness,
those who are the outsiders, are homogenized into an evil or wicked oneness. It is in the
ubiquitous school text books that that narrative is implanted in the mind’s eye - the Hindu
other as ‘racist and fundamentalist’; the Christian Other as Trickster and Cheat; the Sikh
Other as ‘Knife-wielding Butcher’, the Bengali Other as Backstabbing.
Saigol revisits here extensive research on school text books, emphasizing and in some
cases revising her thesis. For example till the 1980s textbook writers created Muslim
heroes as masculine, active, potent and virile, while the Hindu ‘other’ was feminized as
timid and passive. After 2002, current textbooks construct the Hindu ‘other’ as
aggressive, masculine, active and potent, even though negative. Saigol’s essay draws our
attention back to the role of prejudice and stereotypes, as a counterpoint to the new
emphasis on the structural discrimination and disadvantaging of minority communities
terms of public voice, access to development infrastructure, employment etc.
Afsan Chowdhury’s focus is “Hindus in a Polarised Political Environment:
Bangladesh’s Minority”. He draws attention to continuity rather a break in Bangladesh’s
policies and practices of managing minority relations, carrying over from the East
Pakistan phase when being Hindu and India held the same meaning, thus fusing religious
identity with a political one. It created a “platform of vulnerability” that made the
Hindu’s not only political but economic targets. “The phenomenon of property grabbing
is built on an economic opportunity generated by vulnerability”, he emphasized. During
the liberation war phase Hindus were targeted, and the conditions of repression of 1971,
created opportunities to grab Hindu property, belongings and business. This subsequently
was mainstreamed at the national level after the war when the Pakistan Enemy Proverty
Act (1965) was replaced by the Vested Property Act(1974). Bringing a fresh political
economy dimension Chowdhury argues that “The material base for this new phase of
communalism was initiated by the acts committed by the Pakistanis in expelling the
Hindus in 1971 and creating a culture of social theft which the appropriating
Bangladeshis later embraced.” Communalism was an essential part of the process of
socially and politically legitimizing the economic crime of dispossessing Hindus. At the
societal level, Muslims and Hindus are alienated from each other, for the state many
Hindus have become non-Bangladeshis, irrespective of whether they live in Bangladesh.
13

Chowdhury explores the dilemma of a Hindu minority caught in a state system where it is
majority across the border and the majority is a minority – a situation with fraught with
vulnerability as too with opportunity. It is the captured in the quote ““A Hindu is now a
secret Indian because he will have a place to runaway should he need or want to. But
India will not let the Muslim go there.” The Indian state and society’s communal
practices are an integral aspect of the religious minority question in Bangladesh.
Ishtiaq Hussain essay on Religious Minorities in Pakistan: Mapping Sind & Baluchistan
reflects the attitudes and concerns of organizations working for minority rights in
Pakistan and is anchored in their assertion of belonging. The study picks up the secular
thread in Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan and wistfully suggests that the change in Pakistan’s
constitution and policies towards a less tolerant, more discriminatory, exclusionary and
Islamic orientation, was not inevitable, there were other possibilities. “Like the Muslim
League and other Islamic parties such as Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the Indian National
Congress was arrayed against the Hindu Mahasabah and other such fundamentalist
groups.” Carrying further the logic of the argument, Hussain posits that “the weakening
of modernist forces” in India saw the resurgence of rival forces in the form of the Hindu
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and “in Pakistan the Islamicist forces”.
The essay combines cameos of Pakistan’s Muslim and non Muslim minorities with a
survey based analysis of the Hindu and Christian communities in 10 districts of
Baluchistan and Sind. While the official census claims the population of minorities to be
4% of the population, unofficial estimates place it at 8%. The essay captures the
hierarchy in discrimination and disadvantage - Ahmadis are well organized and affluent
and able to counter the official and societal anger that imposes restrictions on their
religious practices and social mobility; Christians face anger for political (especially after
‘9/11’) reasons, economic pressure to grab church lands and social contempt, especially
after the nationalization of (Christian run) educational institutions and its consequences
for lack of access of Christians to education; and Hindus are largely undereducated and
under employed and suffer from stigmatization as fifth columnists, and lack of proper
support networks to negotiate redress for grievances especially in feudal Sind.
With Shahid Fiaz’s discursive essay, on “The Challenge of National Minority Question
in Pakistan, we shift focus to ethno-national assertion. Fiaz a well known activist and
independent researcher, argues that “the current resurgence of national minority question,
ethnic identity, and sectarian rivalries is closely linked to the nature of the Pakistani
state.” His essay shows how the state apparatus, right from the inception, has been
heavily weighted in favor of non-elected institutions and particular ethnic groups. In the
process provincial rights have been ignored and demands for regional autonomy violently
suppressed. The ‘secession’ of East Pakistan has produced in the leadership a siege
mentality, and Fiaz draws our attention to the propensity of state forces supporting
Islamisation and Islamist political groups as a counter to secular nationalists. “Ironically,
the Musharraf government openly negotiates with so-called ‘extremists terrorists’ in
North and South Waziristan in NWFP but refuses to talk to secular nationalist in
Baluchistan”, Fiaz reminds us. He argues that secessionism is not part of the ‘nationalist’
agenda, but autonomy and equal rights are, or at least till now.
14

Jayadeva Uyangoda, for over a decade, has been analyzing the changing contours of the
minority rights discourse in a context of civil war in Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka: Recent
Shifts in the Minority Rights Debate, he returns to make a reassessment, at a time when
political negotiations around ‘internal self determination’ have been displaced by armed
conflict, and the Sri Lankan state’s conviction that the LTTE can be militarily defeated
and in the process the minority question resolved or rather suppressed. Uyangoda
reiterates his thesis that the ethnic conflict had “brought the idea of group rights to the
centre of political struggles, waged by the minority communities.” They call for an
approach that can grapple with the self-determination rights of ethnic minorities.”
Through the conflict and the failed peace processes, the ‘nationalist perspective’ was in
collision with the liberal constitutionalist approach that believed that a mix of
fundamental rights, special language rights and a degree of power sharing would be
sufficient. Uyangoda argued “ For two and half decades, the military strength of the
Tamil secessionist campaign, the capacity of the Tamil society to endure a protracted
civil war and the resolve of the Sri Lankan state to defeat the Tamil nationalist
insurgency have conditioned the extent to which minority rights should be acknowledged,
accommodated or resisted.” By 2008 Rajapaksa’s determination to defeat rather than
weaken the LTTE, transformed or rather narrowed the terms of the minority discourse.
He presciently comments” on the willingness demonstrated by minority political groups,
except the LTTE and TNA, to accept under the Rajapakse presidency, a political solution
to the ethnic conflict that ensures a secondary status to ethnic minorities” Sri Lanka’s
minority rights discourse has been widened and then narrowed down quite significantly,
in the context of the ethno-political civil war.”
The essays also focuses on an alternate model of minorities- the Muslims and the Up
country Tamils - negotiating a political relationship with the state by showing a
pragmatic “flexibility in entering coalition alliances during and after parliamentary
elections.” Fara Haniffa interrogates further the doubtful advantage to the Muslim
population of adopting a strategy linking their fate to national parties in place of
developing a Muslim political voice till the 1980s. The essay “Muslims in Sri Lanka:
Political Choices of a Smaller Minority”, is an analysis from within the community, of
the political choices that were dictated by the political disadvantage of being a spatially
dispersed community with only a territorial concentration in the East. Complicating the
emergence of an autonomous and unified Muslim politics, is the fact that only 30% of the
Muslim population of the country is from the North and East. The larger number of
Muslims that reside outside the North and East see no real need for a Muslim political
voice outside of the Eastern Province or of separate representation in the peace
negotiations 2002-2006.
Haniffa pejoratively describes Muslim collective as “Bit players in both (Sinhala and
Tamil) narratives, they are seen as collaborating with whoever was in power, switching
from one national party to another in keeping with political expediency and in denial of
their ‘actual’ Tamil ethnicity.” The state has encouraged the development of an economy
of collusion” states Haniffa, and an anti state movement that holds them culpable for just
15

such a collusion and has systematically perpetrated acts of violence against them. The
state has not enabled realization of legitimate political rights of the Muslims as evinced in
the Muslim democratically elected authority being sidelined for favouring the Karuna
faction.
Mahendra Lawoti in Inclusion and Accountability in a New Democratic Nepal, retruns
to his policy prescriptive approach in analyzing institutionalized exclusion that underlay
Nepal’s Maoist conflict. The new edge is that before him is the unfolding process of the
construction of ‘Naya’ Nepal. Lawoti in suggesting ‘guidelines’ - for the direction of
future electoral and land reforms, the restructuring of the state along federal
arrangements, and the constitution of two tier representative institutions enabling greater
inclusion - exhorts Nepal’s new leaders to learn from the problems Nepal witnessed in
its previous democratic practice in the 1990s. He singles out centralization and exclusion
as the two principle factors that braided with poverty and inequality to fuel the
insurgency and exacerbate ethnic tensions.
Democracy as practiced since the 1990s, through the FPTP electoral system and large
undemocratic political parties, further reinforced the absolute monopoly of caste hill
Hindu elite males (CHHEM) to the continuous exclusion of indigenous nationalities,
Madhesi, Dalits and women. Also, the centralization of the polity was facilitated and
reinforced by the centralizing political culture. The society ingrained by the caste system
and patriarchy maintained in-egalitarian values that favored certain caste and gender
groups. It was not a culture or structure of governance that made for accountability.
The volume focuses on a subset in the field of minority rights, that is, indigenous peoples.
Tapan Bose in a macro analysis in “The Indigenous Peoples :Victims of the Politics of
Denial” and Pradip Prabhu in a micro study on “Tribal Land Alienation in
Maharashtra: Legality, Illegality and Praxis” - engage with structures of
epistemological and political disadvantage and discrimination that have rendered the
“tribal” communities so vulnerable in their encounter with the mainstream . Within the
international framework of rights, indigenous peoples are morally, if not legally,
recognized as entitled to group rights and customary rights over land, as enshrined in the
UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).
However as Bose argues, “Governments of the Asian region have taken advantage of the
confusion in the UN definition” (of indigenous peoples cast as ‘First Nations’ colonized
by overseas powers) “to exclude millions of tribal peoples of Asia and Africa from the
designation of indigenous peoples.” Bose emphasizes a continuity between the colonial
and postcolonial construct of the identity of ‘tribe’ with its pejorative connotations. This
was socially rooted in the racist hegemonic ideology propagated by colonial academics
and now by contemporary Asian ones. Its corollary is the colonial-post colonial
continuity in the politics of internal colonialism. Bose argues that “the real reason for
excluding the tribal peoples of Asia is not lack of conceptual clarity, but a political one.
And therefore, it is a political debate, which needs to focus on the reality of
powerlessness of the tribal peoples and their struggle for justice.”
16

Pradip Prabhu, a quintessential tribal rights scholar-activist, tracks the colonial- post
colonial continuity in policies, structures and attitudes that have made for a lethal
encounter in Maharashtra between the tribal communities (nearly 9%) and the
mainstream people of one of India’s most advanced industrial states. Drawing upon
empirical studies, Prabhu develops a grim analysis of the impact of land reforms in the
traibal areas, designed to protect, willfully being used to legally loot tribals of their land
and thus their existence. What gives the situation an extra charge is that these tribal areas
of mass distress ( described as verging on tribal ethnocide) are close to Mumbai. Prabhu
warns,“The vast chasm, dividing the tribal people from the rest of the population of the
advanced industrialized state of Maharashtra, is the cumulative result of land alienation,
loss of forest habitat and displacement, which individually and conjointly result in
impoverishment and continue to pose questions about the impact of land reforms in the
tribal areas of the state. 2
Conclusion
For the dominant (majority) groups, minority rights are seen as challenging the state. For
the region’s minority communities, it has been a common experience of majoritarianism
and their discrimination and disempowerment, resulting in submissive acquiescence to
resistance or violent revolt. Since Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka,
Bhutan all have minority problems, that result in displacement, uprooting and the creation
of refugees, it is not the problem of a rogue state but common to the cluster of postcolonial
states that have emerged in the region. Political liberalism anchored in equal
rights has proved insufficient to deliver equality and justice to minority groups.
It should be added that in the midst of new challenges that place minorities at risk in the
region, there also are more comforting winds of change. There is the positive shift in the
politics of some of the minority communities away from the politics of difference
towards a politics centred on egalitarian claims, and common issues of democratic
governance. Most important there is a reaching out to other oppressed groups and a
tentative politics of alliances. Alongside, there is the growing recognition of the value of
special ‘autonomy’ arrangements for accommodation of ‘special rights’, including
territorially focused autonomies for spatially concentrated minorities. However, that trend
has received a major setback with the military ‘solution’ to the Tamil national question.
i Andreas Wimmer Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflicts: shadows of modernity, Cambridge
University Press, 2002
ii UNDP HDR 2004
iii Tapan Bose ‘Foreword’ in Rita Manchanda ‘ No Nonsense Guide to Minority Rights in South Asia’, New
Delhi, Sage 2009; p
iv A Barakat et al Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh, Pathak Shamabesh, Dhaka 2008
v Yash Ghai ‘Ethnicity and Autonomy: A Framework of Analysis “ in edited Autonomy and Ethnicity:
Negotiating Competing Claims in Multi-ethnic states Cambridge University Press 2000; p2
vi A study carried out by the NGO "People's Tribunal" in 10 states in July 2004 found that 99.9 percent of
those arrested under POTA were Muslims.
vii Papiya Ghosh Papiya Ghosh Partition And The South Asia Diaspora: Extending the Subcontinent,
Routledge, 2007
17

viii The rights of ‘people’ and of minorities under international law are different. People are a “nation”
without sovereignty. Minorities do not have the right to self-determination.
ix Balveer Aurora and Douglas Verney eds Mutliple Identities in a Single State; Indian federalism in a
Comparative Perspective, Konarak, New Delhi 1995
x Iqbal Ansari ‘Introduction’ in Iqbal Ansari edited Readings on Minorities: Perspectives and
Documents” vol II, Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi 1996;
xi Gurpreet Mahajan Identities & Rihts: Aspects of Liberal Democracy in India , OUP, Delhi 1998
xii see also Suroosh Irfani Pakistan Sectarian Violence: Between ‘Arabist Shift’ and Indo-Persian Culture”
from Religious Radicalism and security in South Asia, Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies, No 7,
http://www.apcss.org/Publications/Edited%20Volumes/ReligiousRadicalism/PagesfromReligiousRadicalis
mandSecurityinSouthAsiach7.pdf …accessed July 9, 2009
xiii Saleem Samad Bangladesh: State of Minorities in Sumanta Banerjee edited Shrinking Space: Minority
rights in South Asia, Kathmandu, SAFHR?Manohar 1999.
xiv Amena Mohsin Ethnicity and Conflict: The Bangladesh Case in V Raghavan ed Comprehensive Security
2003 pp331
18

A Long-Term View of Contemporary Muslim Situation in India
Javeed Alam ♣
Oppressed Communities and ‘Citizen Politics’
A deep change has begun to crystallize among the Muslim communities in the recent
period. Since the submission of the Sachar Committee Report in December 2006, a
discernible, unifying thread of a positive kind is beginning to shape the articulation of
political demands among the Muslims. Much of what is being talked about can be
summarized as the politics of inclusion as citizens. For the sake of convenience, let us
call it, citizen politics. A pronounced characteristic of citizen politics is that it is
resistant to discrimination and is marked by a push towards an egalitarian social ethos.
Citizenship, minimally speaking, is concerned with entrenched equal rights for all and
it therefore becomes facilitative of egalitarian living. This follows because a citizen,
ideally, is constituted without reference to anything that attaches to us as cultural
(specifically in the case of India of ritual – status) inheritance. Therefore, it needs to
be noted in passing that citizen politics cannot be conducted except within a secular
framework.
Democratic politics in the last 15 – 20 years has so reshaped the issues of
discrimination, disadvantage and marginalizaton, that all those communities which
had been left behind or strongly felt that they had, now are in the forefront of
struggles for an egalitarian social order. Democracy in India has primarily become –
over and above the many other definitions that mark out its terrain – the politics the
governed take recourse to, to gain a voice, a foothold, a sign of status and a measure
of effective power. Apart from the modern proletariat, the category of the governed
in India has been largely made up of the Dalits and OBCs and the women among all
of these groups. The category of the governed more or less overlaps with those who
were direct producers in the pre-capitalist economy. We must remember that among
the producers women played an important role both in household production and
agriculture. Regrettably, however, in the present day battle of the oppressed for
equality, the leadership of the oppressed communities, including among the Muslims,
has systematically excluded women from the struggle for equality and rights. This is
an infirmity in the continuing expansion of democracy in India.
This broadly sets the terrain of what can be called the politics for bourgeois equality. i
It is a battle being waged by all the oppressed communities and has two aspects. On
the one hand, there is the constitutional formal equality which is a matter of
declaration (you declare everyone to be equal), and is something passive, in the sense,
that it does not necessarily change the conditions. On the other hand, there is the
struggle for recognition, which is the active component of the process because it is
based on reciprocity. That is, in the process of recognizing, at the minimal, we
remove the opposition between the self and ‘the other’ as something necessarily
present, and maximally, we make ‘the other’ constitutive of our own self. Together
♣ Javeed Alam’s essay: An earlier version was published in Economic & Political Weekly vol
43, no2, Jan12-18, 2008, pp 45-54
19

these make for an egalitarian society, however much materially based inequalities
may continue to persist.
In the last 20 years the Muslim communities are increasingly joining this politics. As
this process has gained momentum, an interesting development has taken place
among the Muslim. Oppressed communities from among the Muslims who have
joined this battle for bourgeois equality have moved away from the Muslim elite who
traditionally had provided them leadership. This has widened the split between the
ordinary Muslim masses and the established gentry. Muslim communities which are
socially oppressed have sought alliances with those who are adjacent to them in term
of work and
leisure. As a result, they have been supporting different political parties of the
oppressed, particularly in the Indo-Gangetic belt, with resultant impact on the
declining prospects of the Congress Party.
Following the Sachar Report, there is a new social churning. How it impacts upon the
political equations on the ground, may be too early to tell. What is discernible is that
you cannot talk about politics among the Muslims, without reference to what is
happening among similar disadvantaged communities within other religions. This is a
matter of some importance in avoiding absolutisation of community politics. This is
the positive good that democracy has done to India, whatever the other infirmities of
this politics.
Dramatic Moment
A curious feature of the social churning and the new kind of politics emerging is that
in the case of most oppressed communities, it was a dramatic moment which brought
this out into the open as a discernible pattern. The dramatic event acts as a catalyst of
what is a long term secular trend in the making with all its currents and diverse
propensities and gets crystallised as a unified politics. In the case of the OBCs, it was
not just the announcement of the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report,
important though that was. What made it the dramatic moment was the kind of
reaction and the expression it took. In particular, it was the long lasting vandalism by
the upper caste youth who held the society to ransom, backed by the shrill support of
the mass media and the backing of the bureaucracy. This polarized the society into
two warring camps. It was the moment which created a privilegensia with the
decomposition of the consciousness of the middle class into the fragmented
consciousness of the upper castes, and their gravitation into the militant Hindu rightwing
as a counter to the assertion of the oppressed.
Something similar happened in the case of the Muslims in India. The Ram Janma
bhoomi movement made the Muslims bewildered, more so after the demolition of the
Babri Masjid. The killings, mayhem and anarchy in the wake of Advani’s rath yatra,
culminating in the massacre following the demolition with all its violent disorder, was
something India had never seen since the partition killings. Moreover, from this
moment on, riots in the conventional sense ceased to occur in India. What came in
their place are pogrom like killings and cold-blooded massacres reaching their climax
in Gujarat. To call these riots, as many still do, is to surrender to the discursive
strategy of hindutva ideologues, of becoming complicit in the making of a false and
deceptive public perception of the current situation. The mass killings and the virulent
propaganda against the Muslims as a treacherous presence for the nation’s integrity
20

created a situation where Muslims were left wondering whether any body in India
accepted them as belonging to the ‘nation’.
Paradoxically, it was this moment that brought about a radical change in the
orientation and disposition of Muslims towards the Indian nation and the politics
within it. A feature of this change is that it does not seem to be the culmination of long
term tendencies or any structural changes but because of an exemplary act - V.P. Singh
giving up power and losing his prime ministership to protect the Babri Masjid. In the
eyes of Muslims it became an act of crucifixation. The memory of it still operates in an
exemplifying fashion, filling Muslims with a sense of wonder over his action. They had
come to believe that in the power games of electoral politics, communities, especially
the Muslims, have always only been a calculation for gaining power That everybody,
including the Janata Party in 1977, had used them to climb to power. Here, however,
V.P. Singh, and V P Singh alone, abdicated power for their honour and dignity. He
made them feel that that with him they could stand with dignity, as an inalienable part
of the nation.
One could argue, quite conceivably, that the process of change may have been in the
making for some time and comprising many factors. Whatever the case, V P Singh’s
exemplary act worked as a catalyst, precipitating a shift in the way their dispositions
were aligned in their consciousness. Questions of security, so carefully fostered by the
Congress Party, got pushed back and concern with dignity (and honour) gained a
relative ascendance. Muslims seemed to be learning that the questions of life, limb, and
property, were not the only events that should decide their public lives. ii This
development took place in the background of the Mandal movement which further
reinforced the identification between this politics and the shift in consciousness within
the Muslim communities.
All of this brought about a positive pan- Indian dimension to Muslim politics. At the
time, I was traveling at that time from Shimla to Hyderabad to Calcutta and many other
different places. Wherever I went, I encountered the same tone and flavour in the
discussions and debates among the Muslims - how best can we align with the new
secular trends or formations that were emerging in the different parts of the country.
The rapid spread of the Hindutva ideology, physically manifest in sadhu’s armed with
trishuls, menacingly marching up and down the country, added to the urgency of their
search for new secular allies. The all-India dimension of the Muslim political
consciousness, which took shape then, is crystallizing now with the dissemination of the
finding of the Sachar Report.
Earlier, Muslim politics in India, largely, was region specific, in the sense that there
were distinct regional patterns. The regional specificity did not die out with V P Singh’s
exemplary act. It remained a parallel current. Nor will it die out with the Sachar Report.
All region specific currents remain but are being subsumed under citizen politics.
Region & Muslim Politics
Some anthropologically inclined political analysts have argued that there is no such
thing as a Muslim community in India, because Muslims are scattered into diverse
ethno cultural and linguistic regions in the country and, secondly, because at a micro
level, the surrounding Hindu ethos has made imperceptible yet deep inroads among
21

Muslims. There are three kinds of writings that emphasise directly or inferentially the
multi-community nature of the Muslim population in India. One set of writers argues
that this is due to the survival, as strong and visible residues, of previous modes of
living habits, thinking patterns and worshipping styles among Muslims from times
before their conversion to Islam. iii The second group points to the deep impact on
Muslims of the caste and ritual practices of the surrounding Hindu milieu, which
resulted in perceptible differences in the outlook and behaviour of Muslims even
across short distances. iv The third viewpoint holds that the multi-community character
is due to the implications and consequences of being embedded in the larger social
structure and the demographic features of Indian society. v
I disagree with this naïve application of an anthropological categories which are
notoriously oblivious of the underlying political process vi . This is true not only of the
anthropological approach to the Muslim problem in India but also in the case of
various adivasi communities undergoing processes social/and or political
unification. vii Ethnic and other diversities, linguistic differences and social
differentiation can all co-exist with growing political unification or an emergent sense
of ‘community’. I argue that a pan – Indian Muslim community has begun to take
shape.
Earlier, however, to have talked of a pan-India Muslim politics was an over
generalization for there was an absence of a unifying democratic strand informing the
political debates among the Muslims or the demands raised by them in the different
regions or sub-regions of India. The politics of Muslims in Hyderabad or the
Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh had little to do with what existed in Malabar or
the northern region of Kerala. Likewise what prevailed in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar had
little connection with the southern regions. Bengal had its distinct pattern. Muslims in
each region had, and still have, their specific problems and in their differentiated
articulation, the politics of these regions had acquired a distinct flavour. Also, there
was very little actual contact between the leadership of the Muslims in these regions,
although they all knew one another and sympathized with each other’s politics.
The regionally specific nature of Muslim politics is rooted in the very nature of the
presence of Muslims as minorities in the various linguistic – cultural communities of
India; to put it another way as the minority component of the different nationalities (a
term deeply suspect and disfavoured as usage) in India. There are two aspects of this
difference. One, is that Muslims as a people, before Independence and up to the present,
did not get culturally integrated within their (linguistically determined) nationality
groups.. The other aspect has to do with the differences in the nature of the relationships
between the Muslim minority and the nationality of which it is a constituent part. For
example, the nature of the relations between Muslim Bengalis and Bengali Hindu as
compared to those in Kerala or Tamil Nadu or those in U.P is bound to give rise to
different flavours in Muslims politics in the different regions
Some of the region specific political formations have been parties of a communal
nature, most prominently, the Muslim League in Kerala and the Ittahad ul Muslimeen in
the Hyderabad, Telangana region and on a smaller scale the Muslim League in Tamil
Nadu. viii In these southern states these communally oriented parties have become the
main electoral voice of the Muslims. Each of these parties’ posseses distinct histories,
context and a pattern of development.ix It is surprising that Muslim communal
22

formations thrive in regions where Hindu communalism does not have a strong
presence. Surprising, that is, because it is generally thought that one form of
communalism reinforces another.x But where Hindutva forces are strong and have been
in power often, there are no organised Muslim communal parties. However, this does
not mean that there is no Muslim communal consciousness in these regions.
Historically, in the pre-independence period this was the region where the separatist
politics of the Muslim League was the strongest. This may probably be the reason for
the absence of Muslim communal parties, that is, the defensive fear of being linked to
that separatist politics again. xi Also, the process of one communalism reinforcing the
other is a more complex one. For instance, the government of India’s systematic anti
women stand in the Shah Bano case worked in favour of Hindutva by giving a new
voice to the most hidebound sections of the Muslim community.
The region specificity character of Muslim politics makes Muslim communalism quite
different from the militant Hindu right wing communalism. Unlike Hindutva as
manifested in the different organizations which band together as Sangh Parivar,
Muslim communalism neither has a single all India ideology nor a single monolithic
organization guided and led by something like Rastriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS). It
is not only region specific but dispersed and without any identifiable foundations. It is
based, on the one hand, on resentments, grievances and apprehension and on the other,
on vague aspirations and hopes of getting a better deal from the government.
Aligning with Secularism
Muslim communalism and Muslim communal consciousness, it is worth remembering,
is not as extensive in its spread as the presence of Muslims in the different regions of
India. Moreover, there has emerged an ambivalence or perhaps a contradiction in the
Muslim consciousness since the beginning of Ram Janmabhoomi and the Babri Masjid
controversy.
From the Muslim point of view, the ‘menacing’ growth of Sangh Parivar organizations
and the stints in power of Bharatiya Janata Party, have prompted Muslim organizations,
including the communal ones like the Majlis in Hyderabad or the League in Kerala, to
increasingly voice a defense of ‘secularism’. There have been a number of ideological
statements talking of secularism as a desirable ideology xii as well as constant appeals to
voters to vote for the 'best proven’ secular candidate in their constituency. Moreover,
unlike before, Muslims are in alignment with different secular forces in different
regions of India,. This is at the level of politics.
However, on cultural and religious questions they have shown an uncanny affinity with
Muslim orthodoxy across the world, taking to the streets on the slightest provocation,
where in fact, there was no cause for provocation. This hypersensitivity shows a clear
unease with the process of secularization. One can cite innumerable instances from the
reactions to art, cinema, and dress to demonstrate how strong the resistance can be to
choices others make which seem contrary to what is taken to be Islamic sensibility or
identity. This is an ambivalence which needs to be studied both in its theoretical and
empirical manifestations more closely.
23

Nonetheless, this alignment with secularism as a political ideology as well as with the
secular forces has altered Muslim consciousness, including those of the communal
formations. There is no shrill communal voice among the Muslim organizations. They
are communal to the extent of defending the issues and interests close to the
community. Given this, they have become or are becoming akin to communitarian
organizations. This undoubtedly is a welcome development with long term democratic
possibilities.
Terrorist Violence
But together with this has emerged a very worrisome aspect, and disastrous for the
country as a whole. A very small section of the Muslim community, in fact miniscule,
has taken to terrorism of a wanton kind. And slowly this has acquired international
links. Terrorism among the Muslims in India is of post-Babri Masjid origins. The first
recorded act of Muslim terrorist violence in India (leaving aside the violence in
Kashmir, not because Kashmir is not part of India but because together with North-east,
it has a history of specificities which places it apart), took place on 6 th December 1993,
to the day, a year after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. And it took place with crude
bombs placed in some trains leaving from Hyderabad. Some exploded but most did not
because this was the job of young men who had hurriedly learnt to make bombs to
observe the barsi (death anniversary).
It is with this that the trans-boarder terrorists came to know that there is a potential
constituency which can be tapped into. Since then it has grown extensively and by now
comprises many modules in the country with clear trans border links. Before this there
was no evidence that any Indian Muslim could be recruited by any of these international
networks. Nonetheless, now it is a menace both to the Muslims and the country at large,
irrespective of its origins, though these origins are relevant in that they give you the first
causal links.
Riots: Being Unwanted
Underlying the regional specificity and dispersed character of Muslim consciousness,
there are emerging social and political processes that are imparting a recognizable
common feature to Muslim consciousness. They are acting to keep Muslim
communities away from the different democratic currents in Indian politics. The key
element producing these shifts has to do with the history and sociology of riots since the
early 1960s, and their increasing incidence since the 1980’s. This has produced, I
believe, some sort of pan Indian unification of the Muslim communities. Whatever the
differences between Muslims belonging to different linguistic-cultural communities and
within these communities of varying occupations and skills, a consciousness born of
common experience has emerged. It is of a negative kind, in the sense of instilling the
feeling of being ‘outsiders’ lacking in the bonds of belonging with other communities.
Put another way, Muslims have been feeling as the unwanted ‘other’ in Indian society.
This had gone on from the 1960s till, what I have above termed as V.P. Singh’s
exemplary act of sacrificing for the sake Muslims. It is a controversial thesis and not
easy to establish in a conclusive way.
I argue, that what provides the basic impetus to the political unification of Muslims
around a common discourse, of equal significance to them, wherever they may be in
India, is the regularity of riots and the pervasive perception of being discriminated
24

against and unwanted in society. This is not to say that the socio-political problems
faced by Muslims or the demands they raise in Kerala or Andhra Pradesh, are one and
the same. Yet these differences tend to get subordinated to the overwhelmingly brutal
fact of riots and the growing sense of being discriminated. Common suffering in
communal riots xiii brings Muslims together just as economic strangulation unites
tribals, or the evils of untouchability unites Dalits, or gender humiliation unites
women - all in common political action and generating a sense of bonding.
There is one big difference, here. Communal carnage and butchery are much more
prominent items in the news media. Wherever they may occur, they immediately
become a part of Muslim consciousness everywhere. The fact of carrying a Muslim
name is to involuntarily share in this consciousness. Wherever I have travelled in
India since the late 1970's, among the first questions Muslims have asked me are:
"Are there riots in your area?" “How safe are Muslims safe there?" “Are they well
off?” “Do they get jobs?"
It is this shared perception that has given rise to the process of unification among
Muslims and an incipient sense of belonging to a pan-Indian community. However,
the absence of organizational uniformity and of a common ideological foundation to
Muslim (communal) politics has to a large extent hampered this process. Given that
this common consciousness is rooted in a negative development, that is, the making of
the Muslims, as ‘the Other’ of the nation, there is need and circumstances that leave
open the possibility of radical, democratic interventions in the making of a new
politics. xiv
Shaping of a ‘new’ Politics
That possibility is now taking shape. What started with V P. Singh is now
crystallizing with the discussions and movements around the Sachar Report. A
uniform thread of a democratic kind is fast becoming visible across different regions
of the country. At the start of this essay, I argued that this was a positive development
because it represents citizen politics. This citizen politics has three important values,
viz. equality, recognition and equal rights and a set of demands like jobs, income,
education, health and housing. These precisely are the ones which have come to the
forefront of Muslim politics. These values and issues whether in relation to the Dalits or
OBCs or Muslims are the stuff of secular politics and these now provide a common
basis to the politics of the oppressed.
One important component of secular politics, which is rarely talked about, has to do
with everyday life. It brings to the forefront the daily rhythms of our mundane life. It
does not mean that the sacred or the substantive in terms of our beliefs or commitments
become unimportant, but rather that they no longer occupy the fore-ground in the
political life of the ordinary people. Instead, issues of every day life are privileged. This
is what happened in 19 th century Europe and played a rather decisive role in the
secularization of politics, and eventually of society.
I am not suggesting a replay of what happened in Europe, but merely drawing attention
to the importance of this development. By what route the secular will come to be a
publicly acknowledged feature of our society is not going to be easy to predict. What
however ought to be taken note of is the emergence of secular themes in the politics of
25

the oppressed even while we recognize that this has not yet got stabilized and there can
be reversals given the prominent presence of right reaction.
Sachar Report
The Sachar Report can be expected to strengthen this political trend, though its findings
are double edged and can be used by communal elements to reinforce the communities’
feeling of discrimination and alienation from the Indian state. xv The Report has
established that the socio-economic condition of the Muslim communities is
abysmally low, that it is just above that of the Dalits, and may be worse off than that
of the OBCs. The question of the under representation of Muslims in services and allied
areas, their lagging behind in education and their poor access to health facilities is
equally well established. Not that this evidence comes as a startling revelation. Many
of us who have been using the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies’ survey
data on class formation within different communities have written on similar lines.
What distinguishes the findings of this Committee is not just its exhaustive
thoroughness, but the official stamp it carries. xvi
Where the Report’s findings break fresh ground is in the revelation of the
backwardness of all territorial areas where Muslims populations have a very sizeable
presence. These have to do with provision of housing, tap water, schools, medical
facilities, roads, and what the Sachar Report has called the infrastructural variables.
The access of Muslim children under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)
is also low and so is the overall coverage. According to 2001 census, there are 11
districts where the Muslim population is above 50 per cent and 38 where it is above
25 per cent. About a third of the Muslim population lives in these areas. There are
another 182 districts where the Muslim population is between 10 to 25 per cent and
about 47 per cent of Muslim population lives in these areas. Also, there are a large
number of small and medium sized towns with a sizeable Muslim population. All
these areas are poorly provided with urban infrastructure and other civic amenities.
This is astounding.
In the case of the under representation of the Muslim in services and higher
unemployment, it can be argued, that it may be due to the educational and social
backwardness of the community; although the extent of political under representation
cannot be accounted for by the degree of backwardness. But how does one account
for the sheer absence of physical infrastructure? The absence of physical
infrastructure implies that Muslim areas are deliberately ignored in the state provision
of public services of all kind. xvii With regard to the deprivation of physical
infrastructure, the Committee’s findings establish that densely populated Muslim
areas are similar to tribal belts or village areas where Dalits reside. xviii A very high
degree of deliberate neglect therefore becomes undeniable.
This has led many to quite innocently assert that all deprivation and poverty
among the Muslims is the making of the Indian state. A section of the communal
minded leadership among the Muslims has jumped on this, to defame the Indian state.
This view is distorting. Certainly, the state is involved, but in a different way, as we
see below. The state did not create poverty among the Muslims like it did among the
tribal communities through massive displacements.
26

Historical Context: Making of Poverty amongst Muslims
In understanding the present plight of the ordinary Muslims it is essential to take an
analytical look at poverty among them. This requires us to understand how conditions
left behind by the pre-colonial feudal rulers got affected by the working of colonial
economy. In short, Indian poverty, including among the Muslims, is a creation of a
complex combination of feudalism and colonialism. Self aggrandizement on the part
of Muslim landlords on one hand; and changes introduced by the British in patterns of
revenue collection and measures regarding compensation, had made the Muslim
peasantry as impoverished as the Hindu peasants. This reality challenges the popular
belief among rabble rouser Muslim leaders and Hindutva chauvinists that that the
ordinary Muslim had been a beneficiary during the long periods of Muslim rule. xix
Historically, the Muslim gentry and the ruling classes from among the Muslims,
treated the Muslim masses no differently than the other subjects under them – as
beasts of burden, unworthy of respect or dignity. It is important to remember the
limits to the brotherhood of faith in conditions of feudal rule. There is no evidence
that in areas ruled by the Muslim kings, the condition of Muslim masses including the
peasantry was any better. Take Telangana, till quite recently (1948) ruled by the
Nizams. If anything, the conditions of the peasants including Muslim peasants was
worse off , than in other parts of southern India. The same is the case with
Marthawada, also ruled by the Nizams. In U.P. or Bihar, there were vast feudal estates
under Muslim lords, but there is no evidence to show that the conditions of Muslim
peasants were any better there than where the Muslim peasants were under Hindu
feudal lords. When the British conquered India from the Muslim rulers in 1757, they
found that the condition of Muslim peasants was no better than that of the Hindus. xx
Colonialism impacted on this situation in many ways but two of them were
significant, in the making of poverty that India inherited after Independence. The
impoverishment of the peasantry was the result of these factors. By the time the first
British conquest of India was completed, the revenue policy of the new colonial
regime was well in place. It made for three major changes in the revenue policy of the
Mughals perfected by Raja Todar Mal (itself based on Alauddin Khilji’s policy). The
English colonial administration changed the basis of levying revenue from the land
cultivated to the land owned. That is, under the Mughal system, if the peasant had 100
acres, but cultivated only 50 acres, revenue was calculated only for 50 acres. Under
the colonial system it was levied on the entire 100 acres owned. Secondly, under the
pre-colonial system, revenue was collected after the crop was harvested but the
British changed it to the financial year. In effect, it meant before the crop was
harvested, thus the peasant was forced to borrow to pay the revenue. xxi
Together these measures not only doubled the amount of revenue levied but also
added to the interest burden of the peasant because he now had to borrow to pay the
revenue. Moreover, under the Mughals the state made concessions in case of crop
failure. The British discontinued it. Additionally, part of the revenue collected by the
state earlier used to come back for land improvement and other welfare measures
undertaken by the state for the society. The British used the entire revenue either to
finance further conquest of India or to repatriate the amount to Britain. xxii
27

The result was the impoverishment of the entire peasantry. On top of that was the
biggest famine India had experienced till then. It affected each and every community
equally, depending on who inhabited which area. For the first time, landlessness
followed on a very large scale. This was exacerbated by the drastic change introduced
by the British in the land policy in India. In pre-British times there was a long
established convention, that a non peasant would not be allowed to alienate the land
of the peasant, only a peasant could acquire the land of another peasant. All this
changed with the British. Anyone could buy land like any other commodity. With
rising indebtedness large amounts of land passed into the hands of money lenders and
traders who no longer were barred by the state from buying peasant lands.
Historical research has not produced any evidence to suggest that these changes in
revenue policy impacted different communities differently. What however impacted
different communities differently was the onset of Industrial Revolution in Britain. It
resulted in a process of de-industrialisation on a massive scale. India had a vast premodern
manufacturing sector so much so that Akbar had established a department
called Mahkam e Kharkhana (Department of Factories). It is well known that India
had a vast and flourishing textile sector. There was also large scale manufacturing of
guns and armaments and its corollary, the spread of innumerable foundries.
Manufacture of saltpeter was also quite extensive. Guilds of various kinds existed for
the manufacture of articles required by the courts , the numerous aristocrats and the
gentry. All these were more or less completely destroyed by the forced imports of
British industrial manufactured goods. xxiii
It is true that in the caste order and under its influence, different communities
specialized in different kinds of manufacture, including Muslims in some sectors. But
it was not the case then that Muslims were overwhelming present in all of these
factories. There is no study to show that Muslims were especially badly affected.
They went down together with all the others creating a very large pool of the
unemployed. All of these people were eventually thrown on to agriculture further
impoverishing agriculture and increasing the burden of the peasants.
In our analysis of poverty (and deprivation) the structure, in its conceptual sense, is
generally under theorized. There is a need to pay more careful attention to this. The
dynamics of what happens here is much deeper and the remedial actions also should
attempt to alter the deeper forces emanating from the structure. The need to pay
attention has another angle. We then can avoid a totalizing view of the community
and adopt a disaggregated discursive strategy in talking about the problem. Politics so
built will not allow communitarian concerns from becoming communalism. We
should remind ourselves that communalism is a result of interventions from the above
by the powerful within the communities. After all, communalism is a power relation
whichever way you tune its ideology. The Muslim League before partition and the
forces of Hindutva today, helped the hegemonic elements in community to establish
their control over politics in the name of the community. Love of Ram never became
hatred of the other, without intervention from above.
Muslim poverty is as much a result of the many intersections of feudalism and the
depredations and predatory practices of British colonial rule, as poverty in general.
India after Independence inherits this situation. The Indian state is in no way
responsible for the Muslim poverty as is alleged by communal leaders out to make a
28

quick political buck out of the findings of Sachar Report. xxiv The state in India is
responsible though for the manner in which it has treated poverty in general and in
being blind and insensitive to the continued under-representation of Muslim in the
services and other public bodies. In fact, in a number of sensitive areas of
employment, there has been a declining trend, even evidence of secret directives from
certain ministries to be careful in recruiting the Muslims. Here the Indian state is
culpable and ought to be held accountable.
Caste Society’s Deep Contempt
In order to understand the dilemma of the Muslims, it is important to be perceptive of
the fault lines that create insensitivities and cruelties in Indian society. Muslims are
not the only people who have suffered neglect. The Dalits have also been the victims
of hostile neglect, routine violence and sporadic killings. Their presence is like that of
a deadly virus that should be immediately removed or else it may cause fatal
contaminations. It is by way of of sustained reservations for them over an extended
period of time, that the ordinary people from among the Dalits have produced a
stream into the middle classes, which in turn has provided a reserve of energy for
protracted struggles. And yet they remain at the bottom of the heap of the unwanted
humanity in Indian society. The adivasis, in fact, in one sense, have suffered the worst
at the hands of the Indian state. They are the most numerous among the victims of the
massive displacement due to the developmental process and unnecessary gigantism
that has become a part of it. Compensation and rehabilitation has been so pathetic that
Roy Burman once wrote, , “displacement—compensation—displacement continuum”,
meaning thereby that you so rehabilitate people that they soon get alienated both from
land and income and remain part of the heap called poverty.
I have one explanation why such has been the case, which may be speculative, but
nonetheless, meaningful. Caste society produces a consciousness, which has deep
contempt, often unconsciously, for those who are below you, all the poor and the
oppressed and the disregarded belong here. That is, it does not cause you pain if they
remain the way they are for as long in the future, as they have been in the past. Given
this, there cannot be the need for urgency or hurry. This consciousness will always try
to prove that things have got better, when they have not.. xxv How else can we explain
the rather pronounced efficiency of the same personnel who can restore the
infrastructure and other physical assets in the case of natural disasters but fail in
distributing food and relief to the poor in case of drought or famine? The attitude to
the lowly, the people of degraded social status, where caste (seen as karma’s fruit
here) historically, is genetic to consciousness, is one of utter contempt and also
therefore of condescension. Consciousness is a curious thing, in terms of its structure.
If it is predisposed to prejudice then in the experience of the ‘Other’ it will always
find something or other to reinforce the prejudice by screening out all else that may
negate it. Prejudice always employs gate keepers who never allow any thing to gate
crash. Consciousness in which caste is a genetic feature is akin but not identical to the
consciousness in which patriarchy is a genetic component; you are blameless ,it is the
other who is always complaining. So we find the poor, including the Muslim, who are
always grumbling when the state is doing so much for them.
Taking my speculative line of reasoning further, I argue that much of what goes in the
name of affirmative action has failed to take off the ground. Administrative
29

negligence or failure has its roots, not in this or that technicality or lapse, but in this
deep-rooted contempt for the ordinary people.
Looking to the State: Upliftment of Muslims
Let me go back to colonial times to highlight something which has become so much a
part of Muslim thinking and gives it a certain sensitivity, even a hyper sensitivity at
times. While the impoverishment of the peasantry, including the Muslims, went on,
the Muslim gentry and the salariat were doing quite well in services and employment..
Muslims did not experience any decline till the mid 1830s despite a very versatile and
eminent elite emerging from among the Hindu upper castes which eventually would
usher in both the Indian renaissance and religious revival. But when the decline set in
it was rapid and steep. It happened with the adoption of, what is famously known as,
the Maculay Minute. After a long debate on the issue of Vernacular vs. English,
Macaulay won the debate and his Minute was adopted in 1833—34 as the official
language policy for the British Empire. In 1837 orders were issued for a shift from
Persian, till then the language of administration, to English. After this the Muslim
decline was rapid,. xxvi xxvii Since then, the Muslims have held the government as
responsible for their decline and lack of upward mobility.
Muslims were proficient in Persian as many Hindus also were. But by 1830’s a
sizeable number of Hindus had become proficient in English. Muslims had
pronouncedly lagged behind. Many writers have said that Muslims were resistant to
English because of their conservatism and Hindus with their nose attuned to
opportunity took to English and hogged it. To put the story on a different pitch, let me
speculate again. When the Hindus had learnt Persian and Urdu they did it out of
necessity, because there were opportunities in doing so. When they had to give up
Persian and Urdu and take up English, they were moving from one foreign setting into
another foreign landscape, again full of opportunities. For Hindus it was a rational
choice situation. For Muslims, on the contrary, Urdu and Persian were regarded as
their own languages and to give them up for English was seen as giving up your
mother tongue for a foreign imposition. For the Muslims, it was not a rational choice
situation but an emotional burden to decide about. Such a quandary always delays
decisions, which it did till about 1860s. However, after 1860’s, they made very rapid
strides, once the reasons for the decision became clear with the intervention of Sir
Syed Ahmad Khan at the national level and many regional leaders like Syed Abdul
Lateef in Bengal.
Quite apart from small measures of self-help, Muslims leaned heavily on the state to
lift them up. Sir Syed’s advice to them to stay away from the emerging Congress
platform, in my reading, was aimed at dissuading them from getting involved in
politics so that they could concentrate on economic demands. The British read this,
again in my reading, quite clearly. They conveyed to the Muslim leadership that their
demands being non-political could be easily met whereas the Congress demands
being political could hardly be conceded. So it was better for the Muslims to stay
away from the Congress. This then became one plank in, what has come to be known
as, the divide and rule policy.
On Partition, the material and human resources that had been built up from 1860 to
the time of Independence, got shifted to Pakistan, barring a region or two left in India.
The elite among the Muslims who had fought for Pakistan, migrated to their realized
30

“homeland” leaving the Muslim masses to fend for themselves. Since then, with
minor shifts of an inconsequential nature, the conditions of the Muslims have
remained as described in the Sachar report. As before, the Muslims again will have to
lean on the government. As a vulnerable community they cannot, barring a small
measure of self-help, overcome the many hurdles of the economic and social
structure, quite apart from the many prejudices and biases scattered within these
structures. If the government is not forthcoming, their communal leadership is waiting
to take charge.
Widespread Backwardness, High Accomplishment
I have often in this essay spoken of the economic and social backwardness of the
Muslim, that they are just above the dalits and generally below the OBC’s. Having
said that, it should also be emphasized that Muslims taken as a whole are unlike any
other backward community. There is no other community in India with such a largescale
presence of backwardness that also has such a big stratum of people with
pronouncedly a high level of accomplishment as the Muslims of India. In the creative
fields of art, literature, music and culture they are second to none in the world; in the
intellectual world of science and humanities they stand in equal measure to any other
community in India; in the professional world of doctors and lawyers they have done
exceptionally well; such is the case in the field of sports; and so on.. Suffice it to note
, Muslims are a highly accomplished and successful people. These accomplishments
of the Muslims are a highly visible feature of Indian social life, while the extent of
their backwardness is a statistical feature.
The two sides put together, widespread backwardness and high accomplishment,
makes Muslims a uniquely incomparable people. This specificity ought to be
recognised by the democratic movement in India. When the Sangh Parivar talks of
pandering to the Muslim, it is to this section of successful Muslims they point to. It is
easy to sway the communally minded and ignorant that such is the case. For the
democratic forces in India, it will be a most delicately balanced struggle. The
communal-chauvinists led by RSS & BJP are going to make a big issue of the
minorityism of the secular forces and especially of the ‘pampering’ of the Muslims by
the Congress party. Their main contention will centre around the theme of the threat
to the unity and oneness of India.. Whenever the issue of positive discrimination for
Muslims comes up, the alarm is raised that quotas for Muslims will lead to
separatism, as they did historically. The argument being that the Muslim elite has
always had a separatist mentality. Whatever may be the meaning of the ‘separatist’ in
today’s context, it is the negative charge that the term carries, which is important.
Politics of difference vs politics of citizenship
This involves an issue of some significance that needs to be carefully sorted out. It has
to do with the nature of the difference in the character of Muslim political demands
today as distinct from those in the days prior to Independence, starting with the
intervention from Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in the aftermath of the 1857 great rebellion.
Much of what we see of Muslim political demands in the last few decades has to do
with what is entailed in the politics of citizenship and therefore with egalitarianism
and rights. This represents a sea change in the way Muslims have placed themselves
in relations to the main currents in India’s political life as against the preindependence
period.
31

Muslims, in other words have joined the politics of empowerment, egalitarianism and
the deepening of democracy. This is what I have referred to above as the politics of
citizenship rights. This is not to argue that other trends do not exist in Muslim politics,
like that of political Islam or terrorist activity. However, the trend mentioned here, it
seems to me, has the decisive edge. There is now a possibility of building alliances of
the oppressed communities, which is already happening in ad hoc ways. The left
democratic interventions must help to cement these. It should be obvious that politics
based on communities, however oppressed, can never become class politics. But if
through democratic alliances of the oppressed, it can acquire the tone of radical
democracy, then it can come into close alignment with Left democratic politics. That
is one important task for the radical forces.
Therefore, it is very important to distinguish the nature of Muslim politics today from
that which dominated the pre independence era. This is all the more important
because BJP and the Hindutva forces are raising the bogus debate that attention to the
recommendations of the Sachar Report will strengthen separatist trends and weaken
national unity. Nothing can be more far fetched.
This new politics, as should be obvious, is radically different from the preindependence
trends within the Muslim politics. From Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to
Jinnah and the partition of the country, whatever the major differences in the politics
of Sir Syed and Jinnah and the implication is that there are many, one feature runs as a
common theme. This has to do with the amount of mental energies that went into
showing that the Muslims were different and that their politics had nothing to do with
that of the emerging Freedom Movement. In other words, the effort was to demarcate
the Muslim communities as an ally of the British and to demand not only a share in
power, but a weighted reservation, something more than their proportion in the
population. All this was viewed as essential to neutralize the overwhelming
preponderance of the Hindus. This early separatism (i.e. keeping the Muslims separate
as a people and not necessarily territorial division) persisted in changing forms at
different times and was the crux of pre-independence Muslim politics.
To compare the politics of these two different times is ridiculous. The change by now
both in the content and form is quite evident and rather drastic. Except at the surface
level, that is, asking for reservations and quotas and forms of affirmative actions,
there is nothing in common between the politics then and now. Surface similarities are
always misleading. Careful attention to detail should go into the making of our
understanding of the current situation. The BJP and the Hindutva forces are going to
raise hell on any move to create special schemes for the welfare of Muslims or the
demands for reservations. Whatever strengthens chauvinism weakens democracy.
And the weakening of democracy is not in the interests of the ordinary people
including the Muslims. So the leadership of the Muslim communities needs to give
careful thought as to how they formulate their demands. It should be obvious to them
that whatever the nature of the backwardness of Muslims, they have not been
marginalized in the country except, perhaps, in Gujarat.
1
i For a detailed discussion on these issues see Javeed Alam, Who Wants Democracy? (New Delhi,
Orient Longman, Tracts for the Times 15, 2004)
1
32

ii Many of these issues have discussed in Javeed Alam, “A Minority Moves into Another Millennium,
in Romila Thapar, (Ed.) India: Another Millennium, New Delhi, Penguin, 2001)
iii For this viewpoint see Mohammad Mujeeb, The Indian Muslims,(London, Allen and Unwin, 1967),
see esp. the "Introduction ".
iv For an elucidation of this viewpoint see the studies in Imtiaz Ahmed (Ed.) Caste And Social
Strafication Among The Muslims, (Dilhi, 1973)
v For studies around this theme see Zafar Imam (Ed.) Muslims In India,(Delhi,1975). There are many
more words on these themes but the ones noted above best represent such viewpoints. For as interesting
historical overview see also Percival Spear, "The Positions of Muslims, Before and After Partition",
op.cit.
vi There e is another debate on this issue within the Marxist tradition. On this see Irfan Habib,
“Prob;em of the Muslim Minority in India” in SocialScientist, June 1976 where Habib assumes, rightly
I think but for reasons I may disagree with, that something of a pan-Indian community has already
began to take shape. Suneet Chopra in his rejoinder under the same title in Social Scientist, September,
1976 feels that the heterogeneity of factors will not allow such a sense of community to emerge.
vii See my study on the Jharkhand adivasis for an empirically based articulation of this argument in
“The Category of ‘Non-Historic Nation and Tribal Identity In Jharkhand”, in P.C. Chatterji, (Ed.), Self-
Images, Identity and Nationality (Shimla, IIAS along with Allied Publishers, 1989).
viii For Hyderabad see Javeed Alam,” Communalism among Muslims: The Majlis-e Ittehad ul-
Muslimeen in Hyderabad” , in T.V.Sathyamurthy (Ed.) Region, Religion, Caste, Gender, and Culture
in Contemporary India (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1996). For an earlier period see
Rasheeduddin Ahmad Khan, “Muslim Leadership and Electoral Politics in Hyderabad: A Pattern of
Minority Articulation, (Economic andPolitical weekly, 10 and 17 April 1971.
ix As far as I am aware, there is perhaps no study of Muslim communalism or of the Muslim League in
Kerala or Tamil Nadu.
x I am not suggesting that one communalism does not reinforce another. It does, but the process
is much more complex.. One can, perhaps study the process of mutual reinforcement by
examining how government of India’s anti-women stand in the Shah Bano case worked in favour
of Hindutva forces by giving renewed voice to the most hide bound sections of the Muslim
community.
xi See Mushir ul Hasan, “Adjustment and Accommodation: Indian Muslims after Partion”, in K.N.
Panniker , (Ed.), Communalism in India: History, Politics and Culture (Delhi, Manohar, 1991); see
also Percival Spear, “The Position of the Muslims, Before and After Partition” in P.Mason, (Ed.) India
andCeylon: unity and Diversity, (London, OUP, 1967)
xii Abdul Rahim Quereshi, Secretary, Muslim Personal Law Board, has written articles in Urdu
defending that Palestian must remain a secular state because there is a sizeable minority of Christian
there who should be made to feel secure. This was in the context of the tussle between the Hamas and
the al Fateh in the wake of the death of Yasser Arafat.
xiii On riots see Ashghar Ali Engineer, (Ed.) Communal Riots in Post—Independent India, (Hyderabad,
Sangam, 1984 and M.J.Akbar, Riots after Riots: Reports on Caste and Communal Violence in India,
(New Delhi, Lotus Collection – Roti Books, 2003).
xiv For very different kind of discussion on the dialectics of Muslim orientations in India see Mushirul
Hasan, “In Search of Identity and Integration: Indian Muslims since Independence”, Third World
Quaterly, 10, 2 April 1988
xv Among much very useful discussion, see the Symposium On Sachar Committee Report in EPW, 10 –
16 March 2007 comprising five articles.
xvi For an earlier situation especially in relation to the Gopal Singh Report, see, among others,
Muthusamy Varaarajan, “Minorities: Basic Questions , Possible Answers, Conference Papers, New
Delhi, 19 December 1996, Rajiv Gandhi Institute For Contemporary Studies, RGICS Project No. 20,
1997.
xvii It is also reported in the Sachar Report that many areas of Muslim concentration have been
designated by Banks as “red zones” or negative geographic zones which means that the banks should
be very cautious in granting loans in these are. What makes the banks declare these areas as not credit
worthy? There is no evidence, I am told by those well informed, of any greater extent of non—
recovery of loans from the Muslim. In fact my experience of work in rural areas tells me that the
vulnerable are very afraid of not abiding by contractual obligations whether with the official or non—
official agencies. By their very social location it is not easy for them to defy unlike the powerful who
can simply get away with whatever they want to in our rule deficit society.
33

xviii Indicators of development here are of an objective, quantitative kind so the matter neglect or
discrimination is qualitatively of a different kind altogether. The point is: in the selection of a candidate
for a job, a subjective element of one sort or another is involved. This requires not just a fair
assessment of skills or merit but also prejudice, bias or simply the lack of sensitivity as in the case of
women even if we write off hostility. There just cannot be any subjectivity when it is the case of
choosing an alignment for a road or for providing a doctor or a teacher to a Primary Health Centre or a
School and such other things. When such is the case it is deliberate and intentional on the part of
decision makers and ultimately reflects on the nature of the state. During the terrorist blast in
Malegaon, a town of a few lakhs with a majority of Muslim population, there is not a single
government hospital. We are told that the Chief Minister of the state, in his blissful ignorance, was
shocked when he came to know that!
xix The dedicated champion of Muslim rights and well being Iqbal A. Ansari is one of the few men
who explicitly acknowledges this fact. He writes, “The facts are that the overwhelming majority of the
present day Muslims of India are of the indigenous origin and they did not have any share in power
even during Medieval India, and they did not undergo any socio—economic upward mobility by the
virtue of their conversion to Islam. Their present backwardness can be traced to their occupational
structure and social status that has remained unchanged during the period of about a thousand years.”
See his “Minorities in India: The Muslim Case”, in Minorities in India, Conference Papers, New Delhi,
19 December 1996, Rajiv Gandhi Institute For Contemporary Studies, RGICS Project No. 20, 1997.
xx See James Grant’s Analysis in the Fifth Report, 1812, edited by W.K. Firmingar Historical
introduction to the Bengal Portion of the Fifth Report (1917), reprint, Calcutta, 1962.
xxi Amiya K. Bagchi, Political Economy of Underdevelopment, (Cambridge, CUP, 1983); Indian
edition by Orient Longman; see also Irfan Habib,”Colonisation of Indian Economy, 1757—1900,
Social Scientist, March, 1975.
xxii Amiya K. Bagchi, ibid. see also his “Reflections on Patterns of Regional Growth in India During the
Period of British Rule”, in Bengal Past and Present, Vol. XCV, Part 1, No. 180.
xxiii Amiya K. Bagchi, “De-industrialisation in India in the Nineteenth Century: Some Theoretical
Implications”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1976.
xxiv There is nothing written on these lines by anyone. But in a number of conventions of Muslims that I
had a chance to be present, this has not been an unusual refrain. A certain leader went on to shame the
Indian democracy, calling the condition of Muslims a black spot on democracy in India. He had to be
gently reminded that it is entirely because of democracy in India that something like Sachar Report
becomes possible and much else that is happening.
xxv There are two kinds of debates going today without the policy makers trying to link them or at least
to see if there is any connection between the figures being cited. I mean the figures about poverty and
those about malnutrition. The figures about undernourished children at 47 per cent plus are about the
double of what the Planning Commission has given out for poverty. Now to me the question is, even a
methodological one, who these 20 per cent and more children are and from what kind of families. It is
also a disturbing fact that after the lactation period, the number of the under nourished children slightly
goes up. Now who the hell are these parents, especially the mothers given the structure of our families,
who give birth to under weight children and allow them to remain malnourished? If it is not poverty
then it has to be deliberate neglect or callousness. If we do not answer this question in terms of poverty,
then we making a very disturbing comment on the culture informing the Indian family and the attitudes
to child upbringing.
xxvi The classic work on this issue is W.W. Hunter, Indian Muslaman, available in many different
prints. Some very useful material has recently been reproduced in a reader friendly manner Najmul
Karim, Dynamics of Bangladesh Society, (New Delhi, OUP, 1980, see also Amalendu De, “Roots of
Separatism in 19 th . Century Bengal”, in Barun De (Ed.), Essays in Honour of Prof. S.C.Sarkar, (new
Delhi, 1976).
34

Hindus in a Polarised Political Environment:
Bangladesh's Minority
Afsan Chowdhury
State Making Project and Minorities
South Asian states operate on the basis of exclusivity frameworks operating through
various equations including minority- majority ones. The idea of state making as a
modernity project is still not an established idea in the region. Socio-economic conflicts
also are interpreted politically. Ethnic and communal differences are deemed political
identity markers even when the same is the product of or descriptive of economic denials
by a powerful group or forms of class behavior.
For example, in feudal Bengal, during the British rule, the relationship between the
minority Hindu landlords and the dominantly Muslim peasants was not articulated as an
economic injustice issue but basically as a communal and sociological conflict. Pre
partition politics– whether it was the two nation theory that produced Pakistan or the onenation
theory that produced India- belonged to this group. It led to communal conflicts
and social divides across India and ultimately to the argumentative process of multiple
state making, leading to more subsequent conflicts. 1
South Asian politics is the product of an endless number of identities piled upon each
other with most linked to state making projects. These states produce minorities as an
essential part of their construction process since the majority in producing the state also
produces the 'other' or the minorities. It is argued that the disadvantaged
majority/minority state of 'otherhood' can be ended only by becoming the
majority/powerful in a freshly constructed state. It has happened in Pakistan and
Bangladesh and it continues to be pursued aggressively in conflict zones in India and Sri
Lanka.
The Bangladesh case needs explaining though minorities face problems wherever they
are in South Asia. However in each country they face problems which are by- products of
their own history. 2
Although Bengalis were the majority population in Pakistan, they were socioeconomically
marginalized and treated as a political 'minority'. The Hindus were a
minority within this political minority situation. So were the Biharis /Mohajirs who
experienced marginalization all over Pakistan. They were part of the religious majority
but ethnically minor and excluded from Pakistan's ruling class structure.
The dalits and other lower and backward castes of India are not an insignificant minority
in terms of numbers but constitute a functional minority, and like Bengalis in Pakistan,
are people expelled from the state power centres because they do not share the ethno-
35

social identity of the ruling class. In cases where possible, the functional or physical
'minorities' strive to construct a new state as happened in the case of Bangladesh. In other
cases, they can agitate and hope for better days as in case of Indian dalits.
The minority: proxy citizens of the enemy
South Asian states are each other's neighbors and share the same basic population
composition. As a result, minorities of one state and the majority next door are often the
same. The 'Great South Asian Minority' that is the Hindus are present in all South Asian
states while in India which is the largest state in the region, it is the majority population.
They have become the 'critical minority' outside the Indian state. In India, Muslims,
meanwhile, have acquired the reverse identity as perceived contestants of the Indian state
because their religion, and its attendant South Asian politics, identifies them with
Pakistan, a Muslim majority state.
Minorities of today's South Asia have become proxy citizen of the country where they are
a majority rather than full citizens of their own country of origin. So Hindus in Pakistan
and Bangladesh, the madhesis in Nepal and the Tamils in Sri Lanka are not just
minorities but are looked upon as proxy Indians and imagined as a threat or an enemy,
and this is based on the that state's relationship with India. Discrimination against them
becomes justified as part of the nationalist threat caretaking exercise. Similarly, Muslims
in India have to struggle to prove their loyalty to India, their homeland, that they are not
pro-Pakistani or more, proxy citizens of the neighbor and enemy.
The notion of shared nationhood in a state is weak in South Asia, unless it is about
sharing the enemy identity it seems. In Bangladesh minorities in general and the Hindu
minority in particular, are not imagined as occupying a rightful and legitimate space
within the architecture of the majority's imagination of the nation. They are increasingly
pushed into occupying the imagined 'superimposed' space of the super-neighbour India
even as they live in Bangladesh. This perception is influenced largely by Indo- Bangla
relations, which is perpetually in a state of low intensity hostility.
The majority minority problem is not just one of local geo-politics, but often takes on a
religious hue. In India, the Hindu majority's relationship with the minorities - Muslims,
Sikhs, Christians and the North-Easterners - i is a major matter of concern. In Pakistan,
the minorities have been overwhelmingly marginalized which includes the minority Shia
sect of Islam, the dissident Muslim Ahmediya sect, Christians and Hindus and other
groups.
In Sri Lanka the Sinhala-Tamil ethnic conflict which also is a minority- majority contest
as well as a Buddhist-non Buddhist conflict has generated a multi decade war. In Nepal,
ethnic conflict was partly streamed into the Maoist insurgency which tapped into the
resentment of the indigenous peoples and the madhesis of the terai lowlands against the
hill bahuns and chetris of the ruling class. Subsequently, it has reared to the forefront in
the violent Madhesi street agitations. They have felt left out of the post monarchy
36

political state making in a classic case of reconstruction of intra-ethnic relationships and
power sharing.
Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, only the Muslim Bengalis appear to have the right to claim to
be elite leaving out almost totally over 10 per centof the population. Given this situation
across the regional map, it appears to be a problem not just of a particular state and its
ideological practices but of the region and state formation in general.
The minority as an enemy: Bangladesh 1947- 1971
Bangladesh is a product of a long series of ethno-religious conflicts in the region which
have their foot prints in other countries as well. While some of these conflicts are outright
and open as was the case in Pakistan's relationship with East Pakistani Bengalis and its
Hindus; some are more multiple as is in the case of India. Nepal falls in between with its
many ethno-religious equations including interchangeable caste and class identities. In
Sri Lanka, Tamils are largely identified with Indian/ Hindu practices and the Sinhala
majority have a strong Buddhist militant support base making Sinhala nationalism and
Buddhism contiguous.
In Bangladesh/ East Pakistan, the Hindus were outsiders from the very birth of Pakistan
in 1947, though the majority population, the Bengalis, themselves were repressed. a state
which came into being for the protectionist benefit of the sub-continental Muslims who
were a minority in the sub-continental state, there could be no space for Hindus, the old
Indian majority, in the new country.
In fact, in Pakistan, the Hindus were not even constructed as a minority group but
identified as an 'enemy 'group because Pakistan's principal enemy was India with a Hindu
majority population. Pakistan emerged as a contestation of what it saw as Hindu
domination of India. Hindu and India held the same meaning to Pakistan and through this
process the ethnic-religious and political identity was subsumed into one. This process
not only denied them any identity other than that given to them by the state where they
resided. but also created a platform of vulnerability which continued to have a long term
impact continuing into the Bangladesh era. It seems that many of the principal positions
and practices regarding the management of minority relations did not change after 1971,
that is, before becoming an effective minority, they were the enemy, brother to the hostile
majority across the border. 3
Between 1947 and 1971, some Hindus in East Pakistan became part of the non-religious
political movement, especially the Left which was secular in nature. They were not in
any leadership position except in communist parties. At that time, the situation in
Pakistan was not so bad that it inspired large scale migration at the cost of losing the
homeland. But many of the middle class did build up alternative homes and livelihoods in
India, recognizing their limited opportunities and the possible threat to safety. India was a
sanctuary home for those who could afford it.
37

Since Bengalis in general were in conflict with the Pakistani state, there was a sense of
shared denial which kept the intra-community conflict under wraps in East Pakistan.
During this period, there were two major communal riots, in 1950 and 1964, both
occurring across the region and felt in India and then Pakistan. In East Pakistan, in the
media and in literature, Urdu speaking migrants were largely blamed rather than local
Bengalis. 4
However, Hindu integration was very limited and although Bengali nationalism reigned,
it was not a construct free of religious identity seeking. It should also be remembered that
the secular Left movement was often led by Hindus who were 'anti-Muslim' or not fully
secular. Even within supposedly secular constructs, under currents of communal divide
were there.
The 1971 phase and Hindus
If 1971 was the pinnacle of nationalism in Bangladesh, it was also the period when the
nature of the state was defined often through the dynamics of vulnerability. Hindus were
particularly targeted as enemies. Those who could, left Bangladesh to escape the pogrom
in their homeland.
The appropriation of Hindu property was common and protecting Hindus was
considered risky. Hindus were subjected to the highest level of looting and rape. Many
Hindus left their property in the hands of their neighbours. According to anecdotal
information, while some was returned much was not when they returned from refugee
hood in India. So looting – economic crime-had a communal character because Hindus
were considered least able to resist.
"As we moved towards the border, we made small bundles of our jewelry and would throw them
at people who would waylay us. These were people taking advantage of the situation, not even
professional criminals in many cases. We just had no protection and they were ready to take
advantage of those without protection even in such times." [K S Das] 5
Another impact of the war phase was on the trading and business activities of the Hindu
communities at the sub-national level. The established norms, practices and
entrenchments of sub-national economics was destroyed as refugee Hindus left their
business establishments and network behind to seek sanctuary in India. Business in
general declined in 1971, but whatever was left was largely was taken over by the
Muslims.
After the war was over, a new class came to power that had already established itself in
the business sectors, including that once dominated by Hindus. Property too was grabbed,
in many cases, not only of Hindus and Biharis but also of Muslims who were less
powerful. The new class of owners defended their businesses and resisted the Hindus
who as a community were often the trading leaders. The Shahas, Baniks and other
Bengali Hindu trading class/caste communities began to reassess their position in this
new society and shift to other professions or. The material base for this new
communalism was initiated by the acts committed by the Pakistanis in expelling the
38

Hindus in 1971 and creating a culture of social theft which the appropriating
Bangladeshis later embraced.
From 1972 to 1975: the Hindu-India trap
The Hindus were better accommodated at the national rather than the sub-national level
in Bangladesh, because at this level the state wanted to uphold an image that all
communities were equal as regards Bangladesh nationalism. Also, Indian public opinion
still mattered as the new state depended on India for various kind of support, and Hindus
mattered in India. Thus Hindus fell into the Hindu-India trap. Given the considerable
discomfort of the Bangla leadership over India's management of the war politics, this
didn't strengthen the position of the Hindus..
Official India's attitude towards the 1971 Bangladesh war ranged from patronizing to
condescending, to that of outright dislike of Bengalis/ Bangals/ Muslim Bengalis. In
Bangladesh, most of the political groups recognized India's role in 1971 but resented its
unilateral way of running the war. Beneath the veneer of the new found friendship was a
wide ranging hostility, including amongst the Awami League (AL). Thus, Indo- Bangla
relationship was a significant factor in determining how the Hindus as 'Indian
representatives' were treated in Bangladesh.
Two factors influenced the political psychology of the period. One, that the Awami
League government was supported by India whatever may be the private feelings of its
leaders. This AL government was misruling. Therefore, India was supporting the misrule.
Two, Indian goods overwhelmed the market as cheap supply chased high demand..
Smuggling and black market was extensive and the Indian-AL alliance was blamed. Most
smuggled good were Indian and most smugglers had links to the new power group in
town, dependent on India for political legitimacy and even power. Moreover, the most
repressive para-military force in town- the Rakkhi Bahini- was trained and mentored by
Indians, further bolstering this negative perception. 6
Though local Hindus had very little to do with the situation, they were blamed because
Hindus and India had once again become inextricably linked together through the
political and economic management of the new state under the Awami League.
Bangladesh Congress Party: India's Hindu party in Bangladesh ?
Members of the Pakistan Congress had played a significant role in the first stage of
constructing the Opposition to the central Pakistan right after 1947. Congress MP Dhiren
Dutta was the first to raise the Bangla language issue in the Pakistan Assembly in 1948
and many Hindus were members of the leftist parties that supported the Bengali
nationalist movement. But over time the nationalist mainstream found no space for the
Congress Party as it never developed an agenda that had an across the board appeal. It
was perceived as the East Bengal representation of the INC.
39

As long as separate electorate existed under which Muslims and Hindus voted for their
own candidates, there was some visibility, but once that disappeared in 1955, the
Congress Party in East Pakistan also ceased to be an effective presence. Of its members,
many went away to India and some joined the Awami League or turned communist.
After 1972, when the Congress tried to revive itself, it was perceived more as a loyalist
Indian caucus, as it had done little to establish its independent status or participated as a
party or group in the critical stages of the Bangladesh nationalist project. As it
overwhelmingly supported Awami League in all its actions, it neither created an
independent space nor became a political party as such but gained a reputation as the
"Hindu' arm of the Awami League.
The situation peaked in 1975 when Sk. Mujib-ur- Rahman considered the founding leader
of Bangladesh established one-party rule in Bangladesh by bringing together a coalition
comprising, the Awami League, the Congress party and the then pro-Soviet Communist
Party which was also an Indian ally. The one-party construct called BKSAL, was very
unpopular. It was widely thought that the Indo-Soviet alliance was behind the birth of the
party. When one-party rule fell in a bloody military putsch in August 1975, the
demonization of India, the Awami League and Hindus began in earnest at a national
level so as to discredit the deposed political party and its patrons.
The worst victims of this process were the Hindus who were branded as representatives
of the principal supporter of the one party rule, India. And Hindus represented India, the
principal enemy. With gains in respectability made by the Islamists owing to the failures
in governance of the Awami League, the Hindus lost further ground. Secularism became
a hated concept as people misconstrued it to mean the refusal of the state to practice
religion. By extension, it came to be seen as a concept Indian would promote for the
benefit of the India friendly Hindu population of Bangladesh.
When the AL lost power in a military putsch, India described the situation as a "hostile
take over". The new rulers – the military - civil combine- easily constructed their political
demonizing structure on popular perceptions of hate which centred on India, Soviet
Union, the Awami League and their various political wings. To this list was added the
community of Hindus as supporters of India and the AL. It opened the floodgates to
Hindu oppression, as the most vulnerable and convenient community to repress in
Bangladesh.
Property grabbing as a wealth producing activity
In a pioneering study on property grabbing and community identity, Prof. Abul Barakat
and his colleagues have shown that Hindu property was systemically looted and by all the
powerful political parties. The key instrument was the Enemy Property Act which was
passed by Pakistan after the 1965 war and after 1971 became known as the Vested
Property Act. So great is the vested interest of the grabbers, that no political party has
shown any inclination to dismantle this law. Today, even though the act is no longer in
force, many loopholes can be found to enable the grabbing of Hindu property to continue
regularly. 7
40

This phenomenon is built on an economic opportunity generated by vulnerability.
Systematically, the state has socially, legally and economically marginalized the
minorities. Taking advantage of Hindu vulnerability has become so entrenched in social
practices that it does not require state sanction. At the societal level, Muslims and Hindus
are alienated from each other while for the state many Hindus have become non-
Bangladeshis irrespective of whether they live in Bangladesh or elsewhere.
The sub-continental character of inter-communal relationship may be rooted in both the
construction of nation states as well as the changes in the patterns of economic sociology
within the nation states. In Bangladesh two major factors have had long term effects. The
1947 partition and state formation process introduced state condoned formal
appropriation of property and resources of the minorities in the name of nationalism and
asset creation for migrants from India. The migrants from India were the prime
beneficiaries. This helped create an elite class that grew up on a culture of demonizing as
a necessary and convenient method to increase wealth. 8
In order to sustain this appropriation of property, it is necessary for the Hindus to remain
the' outsider'. Assimilation would be counter-productive as a multi-national State is
obligated to treat all fairly, especially the minorities. Appropriation therefore makes
communalism an essential part of legitimizing economic crimes. By making them an
'enemy', they are no longer a 'minority' and not eligible for protection.
Politics of Departure
"For us, the great loss is that of our leaders. The community has no one to provide
strength and support. Those who are left behind are not from the top of society. So
Hindus in Bangladesh have become a minority as well as a weak community," said
Pinaki Das, a chartered accountant running his own company in Dhaka. 9
There are not too many achievers like Pinaki Das. Although there are graduates of
medical and engineering colleges and other professional institutions, many have ended up
in India. Now admissions have become tough for Hindus. "We can't produce graduates
to fill up the Indian medical system" assert administrators when accused of
discriminatory policies. While no data exists on how many were denied admission or
how many left for India, both assumptions are publicly accepted. Although technical
education may not be at the same level of India, in Bangladesh the competition is less.
Such graduates may not become high fliers but they fill the ranks of the lesser official and
private services which are not so attractive to the graduates of India's elite institutes.
Prof Abul Barkat, in a data survey of departed Hindus, using the 1971 and 1991
comparative data, argues that over 5 million Hindus are missing. The actual number of
non-Muslims in Bangladesh remains a subject of contestation. Religious and ethnic
minorities constitute close to 15 per cent of the population according to unofficial
estimates. Official statistics place the figure at 11.7 per cent. Ethnic communities have
long insisted that their numbers are underestimated in official census figures, to diminish
41

their significance as a group and highlight their numerical minority status. For the most
part minorities are conspicuous by their absence in the public sphere, in the judiciary, in
the administration as well as in academic institutions, business and entertainment. 10
But the arrow of communalism is drawn long before the Hindus depart from their original
home. There is a high level of denial by the establishment of repression against Hindus.
Dina M. Siddiqui, writing on the situation says, " In Bangladesh, Public discourse on the
'minority problem', tends to veer between ostrich like denial and a call to arms that verges
on rhetorical excesses in moments of crisis. This 'excess' can be understood as a fall-out
of the syndrome of misrecognition,… Silence, denial and a not so benign neglect are
hallmarks of majoritarian responses to reports of discrimination and violence faced by
ethnic or religious minorities. Ask any Muslim Bangladeshi about communalism, nine
times out of ten, s/he will tell you it doesn't exist, that communal riots happen in India,
not in Bangladesh. Indeed, there is a great deal of pride that the program against Muslim
in Gujarat in 2002 did not result in retaliatory violence against Hindus in Bangladesh.
Suffice it to say, the absence of 'riots' does not necessarily indicate the absence of all
forms of violence. Among other things, riots require two relatively equal sides to battle it
you". 11
The reasons for seeking India are obvious - a steady career, peace of mind and prospects
for upward mobility (freed of state assented discrimination), in a high growth economy.
However, it unwittingly contributes to the production of demonizing images for both
communities. The Hindus migrate because they feel alienated and the establishment feels
justified in discriminating against them because of regular Hindu migration to India.
It is in this context that India as a recipient of migration and a refuge for Hindus
reinforces its ambivalent identity as a provider of space where career opportunities and
communalism rub shoulders. What makes this even more politically loaded is the varied
treatment of different communities, including India's own Muslim minority population,
now officially acknowledged as an underdeveloped community.
Departure has become a bearer of several meanings. Dominantly, it indicates the
migration of Hindus to India to escape a hostile environment that doesn't offer safety or
opportunities. The classes that have got most depleted are representatives of the middle
and upper classes. It echoes the migration trends of 1947 when cross border mobility was
influenced by the vision of a long term better future as much as by the present and
immediate past. Those who have not departed either see no future for themselves in India
or can not afford the journey in a social or economic sense. They are mostly the poor and
the very poor. 12
India is the recipient of the middle class Hindus. These are generally people who believe
they have the skills to make a transition in another country. Whatever frustrations they
encounter, are somewhat compensated by the greater comfort of belonging, of identity
construction. They become the new members of the majority and often are hostile
towards those who were the erstwhile majority in Bangladesh. India accepts them partly
42

ecause they are not aspirants or competitors to the elite, while being part of the majority.
Communalism and Migration Politics
The categories of migrants flowing into India receive different receptions, illustrating the
ideological nature of space in migration politics of South Asia. The largest number of
migrants to India are impoverished Muslims from Bangladesh who have little economic
space in their country of origin and not much more in their reluctant host country.
Compared to the impoverished Hindus they naturally fare much worse , in an India
which accepts Hindu migrants but rejects Muslims. To the Indians the Hindus are
refugees while the Muslims are illegal migrants, and in many eyes, the tormentor of
Hindus in Bangladesh or kin to the half-Pakistani/ very reluctant Indian Muslim.
The significance of the Hindu factor is further highlighted by looking at India's policy of
providing sanctuary to the indigenous peoples during the Chittagong Hill Tracts
insurgency in Bangladesh from 1975 to 1995. The Chakma (Buddhist) refugees left for
India fearing death at the hands of the Bangladesh military and their supporters. They
were allowed inside India but not allowed to become part of Indian society. Unlike the
Hindu migrants they lived in sequestered camps to ensure the temporary nature of their
stay. India wanted them to return. They were not allowed to assimilate. It was similar to
the policy followed regarding the Bangladeshi refugees in 1971.
India has chosen to assimilate a particular community, the Hindus of Bangladesh, but has
resisted absorbing the 'Indigenous People or Muslims'. This has clear political
connotations.
Half-hearted Bangladeshis?
For the dominant Bangladeshi Muslim imagination, Hindus are not economic but
political migrants. Hindus who can afford to do so, do send money to India and that is the
dominant image of the potential Hindu migrant in Muslim eyes. This imaging, mostly
true, also effaces his right to nationhood with Muslims in Bangladesh which coupled with
his religious identity makes him a lesser Bangladeshi and a would- be Indian.
"A Hindu is now a secret Indian because he will have a place to runaway should he need
or want to. But India will not let the Muslim go there. He will be pushed back. So if
people take their property, it's just a matter of price because they are leaving anyway.
They don't care what happens to Bangladesh," said Rezaur Rahman, a businessman who
bought quality Hindu owned land at low price. He says that the Hindus would not have
been able to sell such land without his support and would have lost it had he not
intervened. This pattern is almost universal. 13
Hindus, therefore have become half -hearted Bangladeshis. And the evidence points to
many members of the Hindu middle class. However, what is left unstated is that this
position is not a matter of choice for the Hindus. The occupation of equal space by
Hindus in this country even in 1972, was a very contestable argument. Given the record,
43

it would seem that Bangladeshi Hindus were never allowed to be part of the politicoeconomic
space. They have also got the worst end of the fallout generated by the Indo-
Bangla relationship case.
Shafiq Rahman of the weekly newsmagazine, Probe says that there is a double jeopardy
situation here. "A little threat from a powerful neighbour and the Hindus are willing to
leave for India. Many Muslims also receive such threats but they fight back and stay on.
It appears to be more of vulnerability than anything else. That way India is both a
blessing and a curse. One can escape to India and that encourages social bullies who want
them to leave". 14
In such a scenario, the poor have suffered most because they don't have the resources to
become professional and parley that into a livelihood in India. They are treated the worst
in Bangladesh. This population segment is outside the literary or political imagination of
those who speak out against communalism in Bangladesh.
The notion of 'desh' which translates into motherland and village simultaneously, has
become a contested notion for many especially Hindus. For the poor, the country has
little meaning, for they perceive nationhood through their livelihood and community
lenses. For the minorities, the crisis has happened with state indulgence and often
encouragement. Simultaneously, it is seen as an issue within he Indo-Bangla relations
framework, which again is viewed partly through communal lenses.
Electoral politics, numbers and conflicts
The situation of Hindus in Bangladesh is entangled in entrenched popular perceptions
about voting patterns and the state of electoral representation in Bangladesh politics.
Traditionally, Hindus have supported the Awami League which is a political descendant
of the pre- partition Bengal Provincial Muslim League that always had a strong Bengali
nationalist strain. After 1947, their main opponent was the central Pakistan rule which
established a regime that ignored the interests of Bengalis. This allowed Bengalis to
construct a linguistic-ethnic identity and the politics that emerged out of that created a
common ethno- linguistics identity for the moment. This was reinforced by the
flourishing of the Left in post-1947 politics. The Left adopted a large number of noncommunal
political positions. Between 1947 and 1971, India became a lesser enemy by
the day as Pakistan became the Enemy, everyday to the East Pakistanis.
During this period Bengali Hindus had more socio-political space but were never fully
integrated into Bengali Muslim dominated society. However, the platform for integration
was slowly growing. The events of 1971 and the dynamics of the situation that emerged,
more or less closed that opening, and we see the emergence of Hindus as permanent
outsiders. What is significant however is the number of Hindus that continue to live in
Bangladesh despite the non-equitable social space and their political marginalization.
In absolute terms the proportionate presence in each constituency should reflect the clout
of the minority voters. According to Shamshul Arefin, author of a major work on election
44

arithmetic, 134 out of the 300 seats are identified as 'minority seats' meaning where their
votes act as deciding factors in elections. Traditionally, Hindu voters have been thought
of as hardcore AL supporters. It was that perception which precipitated the worst
example of electoral violence since 1990. The Bangladesh National Party launched brutal
revenge attacks after winning the elections in 2001. Hindus were simplified into
becoming the face of the 'Enemy'. 15
The convenient enemy
The Hindus were the most convenient enemy. This enemy could not fight back. The
BNP, having won the election against several odds, now enjoyed a 'pay back' time. While
no Hindu had dared to repress a Muslim of any shape or size during any rule, they were
targeted because they are the most vulnerable community of the poor and have no
national support network despite being 10-12 per cent of the population. They were
considered as supporters of the BNP's political enemy, the Awami League. It was thought
that since all Hindus supported the AL, attacking a Hindu meant one was certain to hit an
enemy. Moreover, Hindus were so vulnerable that they could be attacked at will.
Regarding the electoral arithmetic two issues need clarification.. One, there is an element
of confusion about AL's Hindu vote bank. Out of these seats AL won 54 seats in 1991, 81
seats in 1996, and 32 seats in 2001. On the other hand, BNP got 46 seats in 1991, 20 seats
in 1996, and the BNP led 4-party alliance won 90 seats in 2001. In 2001, the BNP led
alliance included Jamaat-e-Islami, and the Islamic vote tilted the electoral victory towards
this alliance. 16
There are a large number of seats which are decided by a narrow margin. Thus political
analysts were able to look at voting patterns and party shares and predict that if the BNP
joined Jamaat they would sweep to power because the winning vote difference in many
constituencies was very low. This included the so-called minority seats.
Minority representation in national politics
In 1991 National Assembly, there were 8 MPs from the minorities including 3 from the
Chittagong Hill Tracts. All were from the Awami League. In 1996, the number came
down to 7 and with one MP, Gautam Chakrabarty winning on a BNP ticket. In 2001 the
number came down further to 6, with two winners from the BNP and another, Moni
Swapan Dewan, a member of the Chakma community from the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Apart from the shrinking number of minorities in the parliament, the AL can't be called
the only favorite and the BNP is increasingly eating into minority votes. But the more
fundamental question is - if there are so many Hindu seats, why are Hindus not
nominated to run in those seats. It calls into question the assertion of analysts like
Shamshul Arefin that there are 134 minority seats. Moreover, as Hindus are around 10
per cent of of the population, the number 134 out of 300, claimed as minority seats,
seems disproportionate. Even allowing for that, existing minority representation is far
below their demographic presence.
45

However, the image of Hindus as voters of Awami League dominates the popular
imagination. In fact, religious identity and national identity plays a major role in electoral
politics. BNP positions itself as a strong anti-Indian party though this is largely rhetorical.
Its tirade against India is considered a vote puller and generally has an impact in the areas
affected adversely by the Farakka Barrage, in particular, and the anti-Indian vote bank in
general. BNP plans apparently do not include many Hindu votes. Nonetheless, their
Hindu vote share has risen rapidly, as the AL vote share has obviously declined.
Awami League's Islamic crisis
The Awami League certainly has an advantage when it comes to Hindu vote seeking. But
AL too has taken the 'para-Islamic' line. It was cobbling together an electoral alliance
before the military supported civilian government took over. In March 2007, they signed
an agreement with Khilafat Majlish, a highly conservative Islamist group with influence
in pockets of the rural areas and the madarssah population. This agreement included
allowing the mullahs the right to issue a 'fatwa' or religious edict, a principal source of
power and income for the Islamic groups especially in the rural areas. Fatwas are banned
in Bangladesh as it contravenes the sole right of the state to make laws. The agreement
was criticized and after national elections were postponed, the AL cancelled the
agreement, seeing its negative reaction. However, the AL's anxiety about its 'Islamic
image 'and being perceived as the traditional pro-Indian party, was clear.
The Hindu voters are deemed to have an 'influence' much bigger than their demographic
presence. Political parties play the patriotism card regularly and that has become, at least
partly, linked with religion and by extension 'Hindu India'. No one is sure if it actually
plays a role. For example, the Jamaat-e- Islami as an openly anti-Indian party has a loyal
support bank, but it has not increased in any significant way in the last three decades. In
fact, their contestants are drawn from madrassah pressure groups and the pirs - holy men-
who have entered the electoral fray since 1990. The Islamist parties together control
about 25 seats in the 300 member parliament. All are out to grab the soul of the same
men. 17
Islamists and elections
Jamaat-e-Islami is a Wahabi inspired pro-Pakistani- Saudi supported cluster. But the pirs
are not endorsed by global Islamic orthodoxy though they are also conservative. Hence
the JI and the pir backed parties fight each other. However, some members from within
the Jamaat and other Wahabi inspired parties have turned militant over the last decade.
Connection with and participation in the activities of Pakistan based groups and by
extension in Afghanistan, have played a role in the rise of this militancy. Jamaatul
Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB) and Harakatul Jihad are two violent groups which have
committed public violence and blood shedding including attacking meetings of the
Awami league, the Communist party and other left of centre parties. Its members have
admitted to killing and other violent acts. They are banned in Bangladesh. Several top
leaders of these parties have been hanged to death. They have not disappeared. 18
46

During election time Sk. Hasina and Khaleda Zia compete with each other in appearing
as pious Muslims, evidently assuming that being seen as 'pious Muslims' has some
popular appeal. BNP has been openly anti-Indian hoping that the association of India
with AL in the public mind will translate into more votes from the anti-Indians. However,
there is no evidence that this is so. AL has been trying to develop a pro-Islamic image for
some time fearing that not having that may have cost it votes. There is an element of
mental denial in this. Neither party is willing to consider that they get voted out, on the
basis of their track record. Religion appears to be a rather questionable ploy to gain
'patriotic' credentials.
The Hindu response in Bangladesh
There have been several studies initiated by Hindus themselves which are are routinely
critical of the social situation and state policy. Dr. Nimchandra Bhowmik has a done a
detailed survey of the access of Hindus to the official apparatus and system, arguing that
they are routinely denied promotions and sensitive postings in administration. He states,
"Though there are 55 Secretaries, two are there from among the minorities. There are
now 117 Additional Secretaries but none from the minorities; 383 Joint Secretaries, but
only 13 are religious minorities. Among 80 judges at the Supreme Court, only 2 are
minorities. The percentage of minorities at different organizations range from 3% to 6%.
It's 3% in the Police department, and below 1% in the Army and the BDR. There are (sic)
only 1 minority among 27 major generals and 2 minorities' among 100 Brig. Generals of
the army.' Bhowmik adds, "There are 46 full embassies of Bangladesh in different
countries of the world. But there is no minority ambassador in any of them."
Their limited presence in administration, is particularly painful for the minorities because
they do much better at the public exams level compared to their population proportion.
Also, as Bhowmik points out , "In the HSC examination of 2002, 420 persons place on
the talents list. Among them minorities are 73 that is 17% of the total number. In the HSC
examinations of 2003, 20 persons got GPA 5. 2 of them are minorities". 19
Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikkya Parishad (HBCOP) which is the joint
platform of minorities has protested the 5 th and the 8 th amendment of the constitution,
both of which weakened if not dismantled the secular character of the constitution. The
8 th amendment has declared Islam as the state religion. HBCOP claims that 10 million
minorities have departed from Bangladesh. 20
The decline of the Hindu population is probably a more reliable indicator of the state of
the Hindu mind in Bangladesh. On the other hand, migration data is neither easily
available nor reliable. Muslim migration to India is a common feature and that accounts
for a large percentage as well. One can be more confident about using this data as a trend
indicator rather than as an absolute statement of the situation. What it does indicate is the
impact of socio-economic vulnerability where several imaginations are at work in
becoming what remains a still fluid state of Bangladesh.
47

Trends
Production of communalism or minority repression is located in multiple realities and at
several levels. At one level, it is related to the various nationalist movements that
construct nationalist positions and its end product - the state. To an extent this is
inevitable given the political culture in South Asia and which relies almost entirely on
ethno-nationalist identities to produce the politics that creates the State.
For example, the Bangladesh nationalist movement was dominantly anti-Pakistani in
nature and did not have an anti-Hindu or minority construction. But the dynamics of the
situation in 1971 generated high repression of the Hindus and created opportunities to
grab Hindu property, belongings and business and subsequently was mainstreamed at the
national level after the war.
But there is another factor is influential. No state is friendly with each other in South Asia
and each minority has a counterpart population in another state. This results in minorities
acquiring a new meaning in the region. Thus the state level relationships amongst south
Asians determine how the minorities are treated by the state power holders. So the
Hindus in Bangladesh, Muslims and North Easterners in India, all minorities in Pakistan,
Tamils in Sri Lanka, madhesis in Nepal - are all mistreated. Minorities in fact become
proxy citizens of the other country and become the Enemy. This also prevents them from
being treated as a minority. As a full or part 'enemy' population, they have fewer rights.
The issue of the socio-economic vulnerability of minority groups is so contingent upon
various factors of statehood that it offers little by the way of relief for the beleaguered
populations strewn across south Asia. As it affects all south Asia and is linked to the
management of foreign policy and internal resource gathering including appropriation,
elimination of this phenomenon of marginalization, dispossession and exclusion is more
complex than the ability of one or two nations to address. Since Indian, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan all have minority problems that result in creating
refugees, it is not the problem of a rogue state but common to the cluster of postcolonial
states that have emerged in the region and their collective inability to deal
equally and equitable with all population groups of their respective States.
Epilogue
Return of the 'native' Pinaki Das
After many summers, Pinaki Das has returned home to his native 'desh' in the Sylhet
district of Bangladesh bordering on Assam. He has begun to support social activities in
the locality. He finds his relationship with his fellow villagers has improved
dramatically. In fact, he has become a social leader, respected and loved in the area. He
has no desire to leave Bangladesh and go to India. He has found himself after so many
years after returning to the village from where it all began. 21
48

He has also gifted away whatever property he had left. There is little cause for conflict
now.
1.Bangladesh 1971, Afsan Chowdhury. Published by Mowla Brothers, 2007, Page 80-100
2'Can we get along?' An account of communal relationship in Bangladesh.' By Mohd. Rafi. Panjeree
Publications. December 2005. This is one of the most comprehensive academic books on the topic
exploring both the incidental and the foundational issues of the minority situation in Bangladesh.
3Songkhaloghu Shomoshha Deshey Deshey (Minority Problems in Various Countries), Dr. R.M. Debnath,
Shahittica, Dhaka, July 2003, page 45-50. The Author deals with the problem of minorities as a generic
issue and then explores the situation in Bangladesh. Also interesting as its written from the perspective of a
Hindu in Bangladesh.
4.Bangladesh 1971, Vol III, Afsan Chowdhury, Mowla Brothers, 2007.
5. Interview of K.S. Das, with the author.
6.Phantoms of Chittagong, Maj. Gen. Sujon Sing Oban. This particular Indian officer set up the Mujib
Bahini, a para military force which was populated by young AL activists. The Indian government didn't
consult the Mujibnagar/ Bangladesh exile government and many within the Indian establishment were also
unhappy with the rise of this force as it appeared to be outside all kinds of chain of command. It even
clashed with the Mukti Bahini. Oban He was later invited to set up the para-military Rakkhi Bahini which
became known as a highly repressive, extra –judicial force during 1972-75. It initiated the practice of extrajudicial
killings in Bangladesh.
7.Political Economy of the Vested Property Act in Rural Bangladesh, Abul Barkat & Others. Published by
Association of Land Reforms and Development. ALRD.2004. This is a landmark publication which
exposed through evidence the scale of Hindu property grabbing in Bangladesh and its impact on the
political and economic mind of Bangladesh.
8. Bangladesh 1971, Vol I, Afsan Chowdhury, Mowla Brothers, 2007
9. Pinaki Das, Interview with the author.
10. Prof. Abul Barkat has dealt with issues of migration, Islamic fundamentalism and militancy in a series
of books and articles. This article was presented at the meeting of the Bangladesh Economists Association,
2005.
11. 'Communalizing the Criminal or Criminalizing the Communal? Locating Minority Politics in
Bangladesh" By Dina M. Siddiqi in the book ' Violence and Democracy in India,' Edited by Amrita Basu
and Srirupa Roy. Page 224
12. "State and the Minority Identity: The Case of Hindus in Bangladesh", Afsan Chowdhury. From the
book 'On the Margin: Refugees, Migrants and Minorities, Edited by Chowdhury R. Abrar, Published by
RMMRU, 2000, page 145
13. Interview with the author
14. Interview with the author
15.Bangladesher Nirbachon 1970-2001 (Elections of Bangladesh 1970-2001), A.S.M. Shamsul Arefin,
page 468. Published by Bangladesh Research and Publications. July 2003.
16. Ibid, 469
17. The Daily Star. March 2006-07
18. The Daily Star archives 200-7-8. Bangladeshi media extensively covered the topic during this period
and continues to do so. Barring the Islamist and the then BNP government media, it had no media support.
19. ' Problems and Prospects of Minorities in Bangladesh', Prof. N.C. Bhowmik, page 4. Originally
published in The Bangladesh Observer 2005. It has been later distributed as a pamphlet. ( communication
with the author)
20. Undated leaflet of Hindu-Bouddho Christan Oikko Praishad
21. Pinaki Das. Conversation with the author
49

Religious Minorities in Pakistan: Mapping Sindh & Baluchistan
Ishtiaq Hussain ⊕
Introduction
Conservative estimates based on the 1998 official census indicated that religious
minorities living in Pakistan make up nearly 4 percent of the population with Hindus and
Christians forming the largest ‘non Muslim’ group followed by Ahmadis. However,
more realistic and recent community based estimates suggest that the overall figure is
likely to be twice that, representing more than 8 percent of the total population.
The Pakistan state through discriminatory laws has made religious minorities second
class citizens, especially through the enactment of Islamic laws and in particular the
blasphemy laws. The founding father of Pakistan had termed religious minority groups as
equal citizens of Pakistan but successive governments and the changing nature of the
power structure in Pakistan has undermined that vision. Successive governments propped
up by insecure and non representative ruling elite have sought legitimacy through the
promulgation of Islamic penal codes, e.g. the Huddood laws, which have targeted
vulnerable minorities and women.
Religious minorities in Pakistan do not enjoy equitable participation in local, regional and
national politics; suffer discrimination in government employment and the general job
market; and they live in an overall environment of increasing intolerance and religious
extremism. In schools and colleges, history books spread hatred towards religious
minorities.
Religious minority members are easy target for kidnappers as police rarely take their
cases seriously; they face hardships in recovery of credits and property; and politicians
and government officials neglect the development needs of areas where they are
concentrated. Moreover, given the fact that the minorities in one country are majority in
another, if there is violence against Muslims in India, Hindus in Pakistan become a target.
More recently, the Christian community is facing violent backlash at the hands of
hardliners after America’s attack on Afghanistan.. Christians face anger for political and
economic reasons compounded by factors rooted in ‘land grabbing’ or racism. Ahmadis
are well organized and affluent, but official and societal anger puts many restrictions on
⊕ This chapter is adapted from the Report “Religious Minorities in Pakistan” by the Centre for Peace and
Development and South Asia Forum for Human Rights. It is part of a European Commission funded three
year project on “Mainstreaming Minority Rights in Pakistan’s Sindh and Baluchistan”. I wish to
acknowledge the contribution of Shahid Fiaz, Nasurullah Barech, Manfoosa Ali, Asim Zubair in the
development of the study. Also, mention should be made of the enumerators who filled the questionnaires
for the Survey and Focus Group discussions. And above a grateful thanks to those who participated in the
Survey.
50

their social and religious mobility and their organization. As regards the smaller
communities – the Bahais, Buddhists Ismailis and Parsis – their general level of
economic self sufficiency and cosmopolitan contacts ensure their security against
majoritarian backlash. The small size of the Sikh community and their dispersal gives
them a sort of ‘invisibility’ and the common Muslim view of them being ‘anti Hindu’
allows them a bit more space.
It is the estimated 4 million Hindus, largely undereducated and under employed, who
may be in need of most support in Pakistan, because they suffer from stigmatization and a
lack of proper support networks. Hindus suffer due to the Indo-Pakistan discord and over
the decades they have been seen as fifth columnists. The feudal nature of Sindi society,
where the majority of the Hindu population lives, the collaborative relationship of the
majoritarian Muslim Sindi elite with the local administration, precludes the possibility of
any redress for Hindu grievances.
The paper is structured in three parts. While the first captures the micro profiles of being
‘non Muslim’ minorities in Pakistan; the second analyses the legal and political narrative
of discrimination and marginalization and the third draws upon a field based mapping
study of the demography and status of religious minorities, largely Christians and Hindus,
in 10 districts of Balochistan and Sind. 1 The Survey focused on the extent of the
enjoyment of a whole range of rights enshrined in the international covenants and
guaranteed in the constitution and legal system in the country. It addressed their rights as
a community and as individual citizens. Also, it examined the workings of structures and
mechanisms that inflict injustice, discrimination and marginalization of religious
minorities.
Profiling Minorities in Pakistan
Pakistan’s population in 2008 is estimated to be 163.3 millions. In the last available
census 1998, the population was 137 million. Muslims accounted 96.16% while non-
Muslims (religious minorities) 3.84% of the population.
Percentage Population by Religion
Muslim Christian Hindu
(Jati) Qadiani
Scheduled
Caste
Others
All Areas 96.16 1.69 1.40 0.35 0.33 0.06
Rural 96.49 1.10 1.80 0.18 0.34 0.08
Urban 95.51 2.82 1.22 0.34 0.06 0.04
Source: 1998 Census Report of Pakistan, Pakistan Census Organization
1 ‘Mapping Minorities in Baluchistan and Sind: A Survey”, Centre for Peace and Development,
Baluchistan and the South Asia Forum for Human Rights 2008.
51

In the 1981 census, out of a total population of 84.3 million, Muslims accounted for
81.4m Christians 1.3m, Hindus 1.3m, Ahmadis 0.1m The decades of the 1980s and
1990s saw a spurt in overall population growth, largely because of the influx of millions
of Afghan and some Iranian refugees, as well as de-emphasis on family planning. In
1990, total population of minorities were 3.1 per cent or an aggregate figure of 3.7m,
comprising an estimated 1,8m Christians, 1,7m Hindus; 9,462 Parsis; 3,564 Buddhists;
and 2,898 Sikhs, while the ‘others’ collectively were estimated to be 13,640. In two
years, total pop of minorities stood at 4.2 m with Christians at about 2.0m and Hindus at
2.0m. 2 . The census of 1998 showed the minorities nearing 11–13 million. Ahmadis,
Christians and Hindus claim to have a population of 4 million each.
Given the disadvantages and stigmatization, communities do not like to be identified as
minorities so the above-mentioned figures may be an under-estimate, as some people
may prefer not to identify their ethnic or religious background. There is generally no
population figure available for Pakistan’s smaller minority communities. More recent
estimates place the minority population at 7-10 percent of the total. Pakistani minorities
consist of Ahmadis, Bahais, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Kalasha (of Chitral),
Parsis and Sikhs. Except for the Ahmadis, they all accept being non-Muslim. Within
these communities there are caste, class and denomination-based divisions; as well as
ethnic, gender, rural and urban distinctions.
Christians
Christians are the largest religious minority community in Pakistan and while 1998
census places them at 1.6% of population, the current figure is much higher. On the basis
of the Catholic Church's record of births, and the members of the Protestant Church, it is
closer to 2.5 to 3 percent. Cities like Peshawar, and areas of Bahawalpur, Hyderabad,
Rawalpindi and Quetta, have a sizeable number of Christians engaged in various
professions in the service sector. There are converts, descendants of converts, Anglo-
Indians/-Pakistanis, and Western missionaries. The church organization is very similar to
that in other South Asian countries with a definite Pakistani cultural and linguistic
embodiment.
The post-partition changes in the economy along with the positing of a Pakistani identity
based on Islamic uniformity, have added to an anti-Christian sentiment and the
disadvantaging of the Christian community. For example, many Christians in Punjab
belonged originally to the farming communities but after independence, large numbers
became landless, working as sweepers which further stigmatized them.
There has been a historical tradition of the Christians, in particular, and other non-
Muslim communities in general, being involved in the social betterment of the
communities now living in Pakistan through their educational institutions established
during the British era. Their nationalization under Bhutto not only removed these prized
institutions and crimped their chances to move up the socio-economic ladder, but
Pakistani society also forgot the educational, social and welfare contributions that had
been made by the Christian (and other communities) to the country as a whole.
2 Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Year Book 1994–5
52

Although a large number of foreign mission workers visit Pakistan, its tortuous
procedures for obtaining resident and work visas, has ensured that the churches are
indigenously led. The absence of any confessed strategy of evangelism vis a vis the
overwhelming Muslim majority would seem to minimize opportunities for foreigners to
be useful. However, foreign church funds do sustain the social service projects which
help many poor Pakistani Christians who otherwise find little outreach from the Pakistan
churches. Many services to the Christian poor, including drug education and
rehabilitation programs, institutions for the handicapped and food programs are sustained
by outside funding. This promotes residual gratitude toward foreign Christians and
highlights the leadership limits of the local officials
For the native Christian churches, their real estate is a huge resource as well as the source
of their problems. The church spires that dominate Pakistan’s major cities are legacies of
British rule when large tracts of prime real estate in the Raj cantonment areas -- now the
downtowns of Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Pindi – were dedicated to cathedral and
parish uses. After independence in 1947 most of this real estate passed to the native
Christian churches. The upkeep of these old buildings and the need to fend off Muslims
and dissident Christians who want the land preoccupy the country’s Protestant and
Catholic hierarchies 3 .
Most pastors believe the best way to keep Christian-Muslim relations calm is to maintain
a low profile in terms of evangelism and hunker down to protect the real estate from
vultures without and within the community. Their strategy is to maintain good relations
with the Muslim power brokers and hope that the Christian poor will remain faithful.
Studies by the Christian Study Centre (CSC) in Rawalpindi, reveal that Christians and
other non-Muslims, do not occupy higher positions in the civil services or armed forces,
thus making for a sense of inequality. This lack of trust only further disempowers a vast
section of competent Pakistanis. While Christians may be disliked and discriminated
against, there have been no serious anti-Christian riots in Pakistan. However, following
the US-led war in Afghanistan, there has been a rise in attacks on Christian churches,
schools and hospitals. These are often attributed to groups like the Jammat Islami,
including the attacks on the Christian school in Murree and the chapel in Taxila Hospital
in early August 2002. Christian women, though less than Hindu women, are vulnerable.
The rape of seven Christian women on a bus returning from their factory outside Lahore
in the summer of 2000 was widely deplored in Pakistan 4 .
Hindus
Hindus are equivalent in number to the Christians, accounting for nearly 4million of the
population. They are divided into several castes and further intersected by ethnic
diversity.
After the Partition of India, Hindus had a much smaller numerical presence in the newly
created state of Pakistan, In August 1947, at the end of British Raj, the population
percentage of Hindus in what became Pakistan was between 15-20 percent. However, by
3 “Pakistan’s Christian Minority” Gene R Preston
4 See “The Daily Din (Karachi)” 7 June 2000
53

the 1998 Census, caste Hindus constituted about 1.6 percent of the total population, and
about 6.5% of the population in Sind province. The Pakistan census enumerates Schedule
Castes separately They make up 0.25% of national population. Pakistan has the fifth
largest population of native Hindus. Over 65 percent of the Hindu population is young.
Province Hindu Population %age
Sind 2,280,842 93.34
Punjab 116,410 4.76
NWFP 7,016 0.29
Baluchistan 39,146 1.6
Islamabad 200 0.01
Total 2,443,614 100
Districts hosting a majority Hindu population in Sind are Tharparkar (370,014) and
Khairpur (43,616); in Punjab are Rahim Yar Khar (75,400) and Rajan Pur (11,400); in
Balochistan are Sibi and Naseerabad; and in NWFP are Peshawar (1100) and Manshera
(1000). Hindus are most concentrated in the Sind province of southeast Pakistan.
Before partition, most Hindus in today’s Pakistan were urban, highly educated and
economically advantaged. Most middle and upper-class Pakistani Hindus immigrated to
India after the 1947 partition. Those who remained tended to be poorer and rural. Lacking
the resources to organize politically (large numbers are bonded labor), Hindus have
remained politically and economically marginalized in Pakistan.
Hindus as a minority in Pakistan have few privileges, rights and protections. Cultural
marginalization, discrimination, economic hardships and religious persecution have
driven many Hindus to convert to Islam and Christianity. As Hindus are not "People of
the Book" like Christians, de facto they have been given fewer rights by the Muslim
majority than the country's Christians. Of course de jure Hindus have equal rights under
the law.
Pakistani Hindus suffer due to the
communalization of Indo-Pakistani
politics and their interstate rivalries. The
desecration of Hindu temples during the
Indo-Pakistani wars of 1947–8, 1965,
1971, and again in December 1992,
following the destruction of the Baburi
Mosque in India are inextricably linked
with the rise in communal hatred.
The community is generally depressed,
under-educated and under-employed. The
feudal nature of Sindi society and its
collaborative relationship with the local
administration precludes the possibility of
Hindus in Sind at Risk
Pakistan Hindu Council, states Hindus in Sind
are insecure because of the rising number of
kidnappings and murders.
According to Nisar Khuhro of the Pakistan
People’s Party, more and more of them are being
kidnapped for ransom.
On March 2, the BBC reported the disappearance
of Garish Kumar from Umerkot. His father, a
local trader, says nobody in authority is interested
in taking up the case because the victim was a
Hindu.
Hindu women in particular are vulnerable to
kidnappings and forcible conversions.
Irfan Hussain ‘Open Season on Minorities’
Dawn June 2 2007
54

any redress for Hindu grievances. The landless peasants, nomads and Dalits among the
Hindus suffer from multiple deprivations.
The Pakistan Hindu Panchayat and the Pakistani Hindu Welfare Association are the
primary civic organizations that represent and organize Hindu communities on social,
economic, religious and political issues Since 1998, the Hindus have demonstrated a
degree of political mobilization to protect their interests. As the Hindu population gains
confidence in their political organizations and if they continue to build alliances with
other minorities, their condition may improve 5 . Some mainstream Pakistani parties,
including the Sind Democratic Party and individual Muslim intellectuals have expressed
support for Hindu aspirations. Hindus still remain at risk for intercommunal violence.
However, political alliances with other communities and secularly oriented parties may
alleviate this danger. The stability of Sind could depend on such alliances, as they may be
necessary to meet the desperate resource needs of many ethnic groups.
Ahmadis: Qadianis
According to 1998 Census, Ahmadis account for 0.22% of the population and are divided
into the Lahori and Qadiani groups. Both the leadership, the London-based and the native
elite of the movement are predominantly Punjabi, with smaller communities in other
provinces. After their designation as a non-Muslim minority, many moved to Europe and
elsewhere, although their cultural, family and language links with the Punjab remain
strong. Most of their propagation activities have shifted to the West. Their television
programmes, largely beamed from London, in English, German, Urdu and other
languages, generally centre on religious issues, with Urdu programmes on “Muslim
Television Ahmadiyya” focusing on the teachings of the leader, Mirza Tahir Ahmad.
Their publications view their designation as a minority as politically motivated. However,
they do not dispute the claim of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the movement, to
be the Messiah/Mahdi or Mehdi-i-Mauood (the promised prophet).
Founded in 1889, the movement initially remained confined to the Punjab and some of its
leaders, like Sir Zafrullah Khan, played a very important role in the freedom movement
and went on to distinguish himself as Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister. However, after
Bhutto’s anti Ahmadi legislation in 1974 6 declaring a non Muslim minority, Zia in 1984
proscribed Ahmadi’s ability’s to profess their (Muslim) identity, visibly congregate or
publicly express their faith.
Sikhs, Parsis, Bahais & Kalash
The Sikhs are mostly Punjabis with smaller traditional communities in Karachi and
NWFP. There are a few Sikhs in the tribal areas that are bilingual and have a close
5 Interview Diary, Focus Group Discussions
6 1973 Constitution Article 260 Clause C [b] “non-Muslim” means a person who is not a Muslim and
includes a person belonging to the Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or Parsi community, a person of the
Qadiani group or Lahori group (who will call themselves “Ahmadis” or by any other name), or a Baha’i,
and a person belonging to any of the scheduled castes.’
55

elationship with Sikhs in Afghanistan. During the Taliban’s ascendancy, many Afghani
Sikhs migrated abroad, with just a small number coming to Pakistan. The Sikhs remain
reasonably secure compared with other religious communities, as most popular
resentment is reserved for Christians and Hindus.
Parsis are strictly an urban and entrepreneurial community based in Karachi and Lahore,
with a few families in other major cities. Due to their strong commercial links, the nonevangelical
nature of their faith and a steady outward migration to North America, the
Parsis remain ‘less visible’ in Pakistan, and there are no reports of harassment or anger
specifically directed against them. Some Parsis, like Bahram Avari, Bapsi Sidhwa, the
Dinshaws, the Markers and the well-known columnist, Ardeshir Cowasjee, are national
role models.
The Bahais are, in general, converts and middle-class urbanites who publish magazines
and books but keep a very low profile. The Bahai religion began in Iran (Persia) in the
nineteenth century before spreading to South Asia. So far they have escaped any
collective anger from other majority communities due to their small number and limited
activities.
The Kalasha of Chitral are an old community, folklore has it, of Greek origin. In the past
they ruled Chitral, although now they live in three small, land-locked hamlets and are
extremely poor. Since the late nineteenth century, Kalasha (locally called ‘Kafirs’), have
been under great pressure to convert to Islam. They are divided by the Durand Line
demarcating the Pakistan-Afghan border. In the 1890s, Amir Abdur Rahman, the
religious King of Kabul, forcibly converted many of the Afghan Kalasha to Islam. Some
of them sought protection on the Pakistani side of the Line. They are estimate to number
a bare 3,000. Their isolated, mountainous region and way of life has protected them from
outside influences. However, the tourist attraction of their valleys in the Hindu Kush,
have drawn attention to these small communities. Even more unsettling has been the
impact of Islamic activism since the 1970s, emphasized in the uniform school syllabus
and the emphasis on Urdu and Arabic in the official schools. The unique religio-cultural
identity of the Kalasha is under pressure.
Some estimates place the number of Pakistanis belonging to minority communities at 10–
13 million, with Christians, Hindus and Sikhs among the most prominent. It should be
remembered that this number does not include several Muslim denominations, which do
not wish to be identified as minorities. These include Shias, among who are Ismailis, and
Zikris – Muslim communities that are deeply disturbed by Sunni demands that they be
designated as minorities. Moreover, the Ahmadis – officially declared a ‘minority’–
refuse to be categorized as non-Muslims.
It should be remembered that in what became Pakistan, the minorities have a long history
of residence, and some were present before Islam was introduced to the region. They
opted for Pakistan and in the process Bahais, Christians, Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs and others,
all experienced partition and suffering, along with the Muslim community. Minorities
have stood by other citizens in defense of Pakistan, their homeland, yet have received
56

only insecurity and deprivation from successive governments and certain elements of the
majority community. All the way from the Objectives Resolution to more recent times,
regimes have opportunistically pandered to a policy of segregation between Muslims and
non-Muslims and, sadly, this segregation has become multi-dimensional 7 .
“Equal Citizenship for All in Pakistan”: Founding Father’s Democratic Vision
In the 1930s and 1940s, the demand for a separate Muslim state emerged as a focal point
for converging socioeconomic forces. For the emerging Muslim elite in British India,
Pakistan symbolized a cohesive, binding force, enabling disparate Muslim communities
to break free of the permanent bondage to an overpowering majority 8 . To the landless
peasants, it represented a utopia, and for others it held the promise of a trans-regional
Muslim identity in a revivalist sense 9 .
Jinnah and his modernist Muslim colleagues envisioned Pakistan as a progressive,
democratic and tolerant society, which, while retaining Muslim majority, would give
equal rights to its non-Muslim citizens. The basis of this tolerant society was to be the
separation of religion and state as articulated in his speech to the first Constituent
Assembly of Pakistan in On 11 August 1947. Jinnah said: ‘… You are free; you are free
to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of
worship in the State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that
has nothing to do with the business of the State … We are starting with this fundamental
principle: that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. Now, I think we should
keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would
cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not so in the religious sense
because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens
of the state.’
Supporting this ‘secular’ orientation, it is relevant to recall that several Muslim religiopolitical
parties in India had rejected the idea of Pakistan as anathema because secular
and ‘Westernized’ Muslims were fielding it. Subsequently, the majority of Indian
Muslims voted for the Jinnah-led Muslim League. However, over the succeeding
decades, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, the Pakistani state, underwent a major shift
that undermined equal rights and equal opportunities to its Muslim and non-Muslim
citizens.
7
Moghal, D., ‘The status of non-Muslims in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan: a confused identity’,
Religious Minorities in Pakistan: Struggle for Identity, Rawalpindi, Christian Study Centre, 1996
8
Malik, I.H., Islam, Nationalism and the West: Issues of Identity in Pakistan, Oxford, St Antony’s-
Macmillan, 1999
.
9
Hashmi, T.I., Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia, Denver, Westview, 1992; Jalal, A., The Sole Spokesman:
Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge, CUP, 1985.
57

Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Excerpts of Interview July 14, 1947, New Delhi
Q. Could you as governor-general make a brief statement on the minorities problems?
A. At present I am only governor-general designate. We will assume for a moment that on August 15 I shall be
really the governor-general of Pakistan. On that assumption, let me tell you that I shall not depart from what I
said repeatedly with regard to the minorities. Every time I spoke about the minorities I meant what I said and
what I said I meant. Minorities to whichever community they may belong will be safeguarded. Their religion
or faith or belief will be secure. There will be no interference of any kind with their freedom of worship. They
will have their protection with regard to their religion, faith, their life, their culture. They will be, in all
respects, the citizens of Pakistan without any distinction of caste or creed. The will have their rights and
privileges and no doubt along with this goes the obligations of citizenship. Therefore, the minorities have their
responsibilities also, and they will play their part in the affairs of this state. As long as the minorities are loyal
to the state and owe true allegiance, and as long as I have any power, they need have no apprehension of any
kind.
Q. What are your comments on recent statements and speeches of certain Congress leaders to the effect that if
Hindus in Pakistan are treated badly they will treat Muslims in Hindustan worse?
A. I hope they will get over this madness and follow the line I am suggesting. It is no use picking up the
statements of this man here or that man there. You must remember that in every country there are crooks,
cranks, and what I call mad people.
Q. Would you like minorities to stay in Pakistan or would you like an exchange of population?
A. As far as I can speak for Pakistan, I say that there is no reason for any apprehension on the part of the
minorities in Pakistan. It is for them to decide what they should do. All I can say is that there is no reason for
any apprehension so far as I can speak about Pakistan. It is for them to decide. I cannot order them.
Q. Will Pakistan be a secular or theocratic state?
A. You are asking me a question that is absurd. I do not know what a theocratic state means.
A correspondent suggested that a theocratic state meant a state where only people of a particular religion, for
example Muslims, could be full citizens and non-Muslims would not be full citizens.
A. Then it seems to me that what I have already said is like throwing water on a ducks's back. When you talk
of democracy I am afraid you have not studied Islam. We learned democracy thirteen centuries ago.
`Source: “Jinnah’s Speeches and Statements” published by Oxford University Press
Scholarly opinion on this change in Pakistani official and societal attitudes varies. One
group argues that the demand for Pakistan had hinged on Muslim majority provinces and
used Islamic symbols for mobilization, thus predicating a Muslim majoritarian bias.
Therefore, despite the Muslim League’s assurances to minorities, the party’s Muslim
credentials were pronounced both during the colonial and national periods. Others
scholars root it in the enduring contest between the religious and the liberal positions
regarding nationalism. Like the Muslim League and other Islamic parties such as Jamaati-Islami
(JI), the Indian National Congress was arrayed against the Hindu Mahasabah and
other such fundamentalist groups. The weakening of modernist forces from inertia,
exhaustion or disarray, allowed these rival forces to achieve power. As with the Hindu
58

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, the Islamicist forces in Pakistan have rewritten
South Asian history to suit their religious views.
A third group of scholars explain the rise of unilateralism over pluralism as being due to
economic and political reasons. The masses’ continued economic and political
disempowerment has encouraged the emergence of counter forces which are proposing
an alternative to the ‘Westernized’ paradigms. Still others locate the roots of xenophobia
as embedded in the nature and aspirations of South Asia’s middle classes, for whom
regional and sectarian identifications remain paramount. There are some who emphasise
the role of individuals like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Zia ul-Haq, among others, who
coopted and encouraged obscurantist forces – to seek legitimacy or mobilize a political
constituency. Finally, the globalists see political Islam re-emerging as the rallying point
to counter the overpowering forces of Westernism.
Our basic position is that there is nothing inevitable about Pakistan’s shift from a
Jinnahist to a more Jihadi (Islamic fundamentalist) course. As we shall detail later,
opinion surveys indicate that most people in Pakistan still believe in tolerance and
coexistence and would like to revert to the original dream 10 . However, inter community
relationships have been severely distorted by the acrimonious Indo-Pakistani relationship.
While Muslim anger has been directed against Hindus in Pakistan; in India, Hindu
fundamentalists treat Muslims as scapegoats or regard them as traitors.
In this exclusionary process of nationalism(s), other communities have been deeply
affected, including Christians in both countries, and Ahmadis and Shias in Pakistan. This
concept of majoritarianism is fallacious, as both Islam and Hinduism are not monolithic.
In Pakistan, the growing emphasis on ‘Muslimness’ has not only caused justifiable
concern among non-Muslims, but the intra-Muslim ideological divides have also become
more acute as apparent in the growing discovery of ‘enemies from within’. This is
translated in the rising incidence of Shia –Sunni violence.
Jinnah’s Vision Vanishes
Jinnah had envisioned Pakistan as a tolerant and egalitarian society, where state and
religion would be separated. However, his vision of constitutional politics was thwarted
by a growing accent on administration rather than governance. The regional disparities
between East and West Pakistan were used to delay the framing of a Constitution. In the
meantime, the Indian Act of 1935 and the Independence Act of 1947 remained the
constitutional guidelines for the regimes. These documents, dating from the Raj, despite
their inherent communitarian definitions including, separate electorates, were generally
secular. They stipulated a limited franchise, based on age, education, land holding and tax
payment.
For Pakistan to have its own political identity, it needed its own Constitution rather than
continuing with imperial traditions and rules. Moreover, Pakistan elite wanted to look
different from ‘secular’ India, to construct a pronounced Muslim identity. Subsequently,
10 ‘Fifty Years: Fifty Questions’, Herald, Karachi, January 1997
59

many regimes would use the Islamic factor, not only for nation-building purposes but
also for legitimizing their policies. Alongside these political convulsions, the
administrative and economic structures remained static. In short, the state and society
failed to achieve interdependence.
In the 1950s, land reforms were introduced in a partisan manner, implemented in the
eastern wing; whereas feudal West Pakistan remained untouched. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s
land reforms in 1972 were cosmetic as landowners were advised in advance to distribute
their properties among their families. Most of the politicians in Pakistan’s Assemblies
come from feudal families. These feudal families have vast trans-regional and transethnic
matrimonial links; and their links with the professional classes further guarantee
the protection of their class-based interests. Significantly, the religious ulama or clerics,
despite their lower middle-class or peasant origins, have not campaigned for the
eradication of feudalism. In rural Sind, heinous practices such as ‘honor killings’,
marriages with Qur’an (mock marriages) are prevalent. In the NWFP, the tribal system
has been shaken up due to migration and socio-economic development in the region.
Within Balochistan, especially in the Bugti and Marri areas, it remains ascendant. In
Balochistan the chieftains like the Sindi waderas (big landowners) exercise absolute
control.
The clerics in Pushtun society have a higher status than those in Balochistan, although in
rural Sind, the Syeds (holy people) and the Sufi orders (piri-muridi), attached to the
shrines of early Sufis command greater allegiance among the people. A Syed or Pir
Wadera is more powerful than an ordinary Wadera. Despite the chauvinist and powerbased
structures underlying these systems, they have generally offered protection to non-
Muslim minorities. The non Muslim minorities – however affluent – do not enjoy equal
social status 11 .
Partition and Demographic Changes
The partition of the Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan in August 1947 resulted
in one of the largest and most rapid migrations in human history with an estimated 14.5
million people migrating within four years..Pakistani Punjab saw 19.7% of its population
leave. By 1951 25.5% of its population was from across the border. In Indian Punjab,
40.4% of the population left and in 1951 18.8% of the population were migrants. 12 . The
percentage of Muslims fell from 32 percent in 1931 to 1.8 percent by 1951 in districts
that were to end up in Indian Punjab. Similarly, in the districts that became part of
Pakistani Punjab, the percentage of Hindus and Sikhs fell from 22 percent to 0.16% 13 .
Partition left Punjabis divided by the Indo-Pakistani border - Muslims fled east Punjab
after killings and mass expulsions; and Hindus and Sikhs fled killings in west Punjab.
11 For the politics of feudal elitism and the official reluctance to implement land reforms and agricultural
tax, see Hussain, A., Elite Politics in an Ideological State, London, Dawson, 1979; see also Masud, M.,
Hari Report: Note of Dissent, Karachi, 1948.
12 “The Big March: Migratory Flows After the Partition of India”, Harvard Kennedy School
13 “The Partition of India : Demographic Consequences”, Prashant, Asim and Atif
60

Christians mainly concentrated in undivided Punjab, which, religiously, was the most
plural of all the British provinces, were also seriously affected. As far as the 565 princely
states were concerned, their plural societies were initially protected, but with India and
Pakistan’s desire for their integration, voluntary as well as forced population transfers
followed. In particular, many Muslims from the princely states of Jammu and Kashmir,
Junagardh and Hyderabad moved to Pakistan, whereas Bahawalpur and other such
predominantly Muslim states saw an outflow of Hindus to India 14 .
Following the 1970 civil war between East and West Pakistan and and the emergence of
the new state of Bangladesh led to more trans-regional migration. In 1979, following the
Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, refugees from these two
neighboring countries added to Pakistan’s population. 15 . All this has resulted in radical
demographic changes that have fed into already highly competitive and volatile intercommunity
relationships.
Tricks of Constitutions
In 1949, a year after Jinnah’s death, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan introduced the
Objectives Resolution. This document tried to placate the Muslim clerics and equally
tried to establish Pakistani nationhood on the principle of religious conformity.
Accordingly, the rules and regulations were to be framed in consonance with Islam,
allowing a greater role for the ulama, who felt emboldened by this greater recognition.
The ulama’s sectarianism came into the open in 1953. They wanted the regime to declare
Ahmadis a non-Muslim minority and remove Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister, Sir
Zafrullah Khan, an Ahmadi.. The violence led to the imposition of the first martial law in
Lahore and the arrest of several religio-political leaders, including Syed Abul Ala
Maudoodi, the founder of the Jammat Islami. He was tried and sentenced to death
(eventually commuted). This was the first time that the religio-political parties had
pressurized the regime in Karachi to play arbiter on religious affairs. The regime resisted
but the ulama found a common allying point that they would more effectively use 20
years later. Maudoodi’s trial exposed serious intra-Muslim differences within the ulama
over the definition of a Muslim 16 .
Other than the interim legislation of 1947 and the Objectives Resolution of 1949,
Pakistan has had four Constitutions since its independence. Viewed from the framework
of a minority rights lens, Pakistan’s successive constitutions represent a steady movement
towards institutionalization of exclusion and segregation of minorities. This has
legitimized wider socio-economic segregation of minorities and other underprivileged
groups such as women.
14 Kudaisya, G & Yong Tan, T. The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia, London: Routledge (2000)
15 Qadeer, MA. Lahore: Urban Development in the Third World, Lahore, Vanguard Books Limited (1983).
16 For details on constitutional developments and the religious riots in the early years, see Afzal, M.R.,
Pakistan: History and Politics, 1947–1971, Karachi, OUP, 2001; Binder, L., Religion and Politics in
Pakistan, Los Angeles, 1961; Nasr, S.V.R., Mawdudi “Making of Islamic Revolution”, New York, OUP,
1996
61

The 1956 Constitution largely reflected the spirit of the Objectives Resolution and
officially declared Pakistan an ‘Islamic Republic’.Ayub Khan’s 1962 Constitution
retained the Objectives Resolution as the Preamble but dropped the word ‘Islamic’ from
the country’s title. His successor General Yahya Khan, offered a legal framework order –
an interim constitutional arrangement that did not segregate minorities, nor did it coopt
the religious groups.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s 1973 Constitution was singular in that it was adopted by elected
representatives, thus reflecting opinions across the country. The Objectives Resolution,
once again, became the Preamble of the Constitution, Islam became the state religion and
the occupants of the two highest offices in the country – the President and Prime Minister
– were required to be Muslim. The religio-political elements such as the JI and JUI called
for more Islamic clauses to be inserted into the Constitution. Bhutto himself initiated the
process of introducing Islamizing amendments to the Constitution, which was
consolidated by Zia. Bhutto’s anti-Ahmadi legislation converted the National Assembly –
a political institution – into a forum which defined a community’s creed and religious
profile.
Zia ul Haq Constitutional Amendments
The Eighth Amendment (1985) to the constitution changed the entire spectrum of policies
and attitudes towards minorities and women. Zia’s own religiosity, his effort to woo
religious parties like the JI and JUI, and his strategy to counter the revolutionary impact
from neighboring Iran all underwrote these amendments. Under Zia ul Haq a militaryclerical
nexus was installed in Pakistan. Zia favored Sunnis over Shias and scripturalists
over the syncretists. The introduction of ushr, zakat and other Islamic taxes provoked
protest from Shia groups, with the regime agreeing to some official concessions. Zia
posed as the Amir ul Momineen (leader of the faithful), with the help of a pliant media
controlled by his generals.
Zia established the Federal Sharia Courts and superimposed its verdicts on the country’s
elected institutions, bringing all existing laws in line with the ‘Injunctions of Islam’. By
bringing in Art 260 which specified who was a Muslim and a non Muslim, the state
defined the religions of its citizens, in addition to offering an exclusionary definition of
Islam. The second amendment (1974) had declared the Ahmadis a non-Muslim minority,
Zia’s Ordinance XX 1984 prohibited any Ahmadi from identifying as a Muslim and
making it a punishable offence. Many Ahmadis were tried and convicted for calling
themselves Muslims or using the word ‘mosque’ for their place of worship.
Anti-blasphemy Code and Legal Exclusion
The Zia regime’s various amendments and additions to the Penal Code resulted in severe
socio-legal discrimination against minorities. The blasphemy laws established a unilateral
system in which any male Muslim can institute litigation. The law prohibits women and
minorities from initiating blasphemy cases. The Zia law of evidence (Qanoon-i-
Shihadah) – equating the evidence of two women or two non-Muslims to that of a single
male Muslim – further disempowers non-Muslims and women, while making it easier for
Muslim men to pursue legal proceedings against the accused party. The 1885 Blasphemy
62

Laws of the Raj were introduced to outlaw the inflaming of religious hatred. These laws
became part of the Pakistan Penal Code as Section 295. Pakistan, under Zia added two
new clauses, B – which brings within the punitive ambit of the law ‘defilement’
derogatory use of the Holy Qur’an and C –which widens ‘intention’ to include
“imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly”; and the death penalty.
In February 1994, the Chief Justice led Pakistan Law Commission found that the antiblasphemy
clause was being frequently misused by the police and recommended its
review by the Islamic Ideology Council. Benazir Bhutto’s government agreed but
following nationwide demonstrations, the PPP regime backtracked. Musharraf’s regime
also failed to remove them because f the outcry of fundamentalists.
The anti-blasphemy code has been used against both Muslims and non-Muslims.
According to some reports, there are more Muslims in jail accused of blasphemy than
non-Muslims 17 . In August 2002, Rukhsana Bunayad, became the first ever Muslim
woman to be arraigned on a charge of blaspheming against the Qur’an in a public
meeting in Mianwali.
The Qisas and Diyat Ordinance brought in by Zia – Sharia laws regarding murder and
blood money – have been part of the Penal Code since 1990. Qisas and diyat are age-old
tribal traditions, which allow revenge or payment of blood money. These ordinances have
severely hampered minorities’ and women’s ability to obtain equal rights and due justice,
especially in adverse situations. First, both women and minorities are completely
disadvantaged as witnesses given the law of evidence. Second, the ordinances offer a
parallel system of private justice where any kind of miscarriage of justice is possible. For
example, the consumption of alcohol was banned in Pakistan under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in
1976 but non-Muslims were allowed to consume, manufacture and purchase it via
permits. However, this system has led to corruption and discrimination. While the
Muslim religious elements denigrated non-Muslims for immoral practices, corrupt
officials encouraged some non-Muslims to run illicit sales. This lowered the self-esteem
of Christians, especially, as the prohibition law has led to a kind of ‘moral degradation’
of the community and has undoubtedly criminalized certain sections of their
communities.
Political Separatism
Significantly, people in Pakistan have usually voted for the mainstream non religiopolitical
parties. Also, Pakistanis, generally have not sought separate electorates. It was
Zia who divided Pakistanis into Muslim and non-Muslim voters. In 1984, Art 51 was
amended (Clause 4A) and the segregationist regime of separate electorates for minorities
was established. In other words, non-Muslims would have their own constituencies and
separate representatives. Despite living side by side with Muslims, they would not share
the same voting rights and constituencies. Their constituency may be shared with people
they have never met or who live hundreds of miles away. Similarly, their representative
17 Bennett, J., ‘Religion and democracy in Pakistan: the rights of women and minorities’, SDPI Paper
63

Christian & Hindu Votes Impact 50 National Assembly Seats
Non-Muslim minorities can make a difference in no less than 50 National Assembly seats, says
a study by Christian organization of the 1993 elections. The basis of the study is the difference
between the votes polled by the winning and losing candidates, which in these seats was far less
than the number of the registered non-Muslim voters in the constituency.
The study shows that the Hindus population is so concentrated in Sanghar, Tharparkar and
Mirpur Khas that they could tilt the balance in three to five seats, and make a difference in
Jacobabad, Hyderabad, Khairpur, Ghotki, Badin and Karachi with the help of Christians and
other communities.
Christian voting population can influence election results in at least 35 National Assembly
constituencies in the Punjab and one in the NWFP. There are five such constituencies in
Lahore, four each in Faisalabad and Sheikhupura, three each in Kasur, Sialkot and Gujranwala
and two each in Sargodha, Okara and Sahiwal districts. In the NWFP they can decisively
influence the results in Chitral constituency.
Almost all elections held since 1985 show that non-Muslim voters could have made a big
difference. The PPP won from Faisalabad-VI by a margin of only 159 votes. The number of
non-Muslim votes in the area was 11,065. Similarly, the PML won from Sialkot-III by 391
votes. The Christian voters there numbered 12,568.
Source Mahmood Zaman “Minorities upbeat on joint electorate” Dawn January 19, 2002
may be a total stranger to them. Moreover, the Muslim representatives, even if they live
in the same town, would have no concern for them.
Zia’s Presidential Order specified 10 seats in the National Assembly for non-Muslims
(four for Christians; four for Hindus; one for Sikhs and Parsis together; and one for
Ahmadis) and similarly in the four Provincial Assemblies (e.g.. in Sind, nine seats were
reserved for non-Muslims; five for Hindus; two for Christians; one for Sikhs; and one for
Ahmadis; in Balochistan, one seat was reserved for Christians, and one for Hindus, Sikhs
and Parsis combined).
The system of separate electorates put the minority leadership in a dilemma. If they chose
non-participation, they would be totally disenfranchised, whereas participation would be
seen as supporting enforced segregation. Before the 1993 elections, a minority candidate
for the Punjab Assembly, Naeem Shakir, had gone to Court. The Supreme Court initially
allowed Muslim and non-Muslim voters to cast their votes interchangeably across the
religious boundaries in his constituency. However, a larger bench of the Supreme in
October 1993 reversed its earlier verdict. Naeem Shakir was disallowed from contesting.
64

The forced segregation resulted in representatives from the majority community ignoring
development schemes in the areas inhabited by minorities since they did not fall within
their constituencies. In the same way, most of the minorities, who were already poor,
could not reach their representatives, either because they did not know them or had no
means of contacting them.
Over the last two decades, many civic groups Muslim and non Muslim have demanded
the annulment of this harmful and immensely discriminatory policy. 18 It was only after
the US action against the Taliban, and US pressure on the government for reforms, that
President Pervez Musharraf, in early January 2002, abolished the separate electorates, as
well as the reserved seats for minorities. Musharraf also removed the statement regarding
reaffirmation of the finality of prophet hood on the voter’s registration form, which had
seriously affected the Ahmadis. However, within months the regime was obliged to
rescind its decision and restored the practice in May 2002.
Musharraf had increased the overall number of seats in the National and Provincial
Assemblies, and also those reserved for women and minorities. However, meager
economic resources and a and a lack of organizational means have made it nigh
impossible for minority candidates to contest elections on their own.
Majoritarian Pakistan
Zia ushered in a socio-political ethos in which notion of Pakistan as a sovereign country
was declared an ideological construct, rooted in Islam, which simply added to prevalent
ambiguities about its national identity. In addition to civic and social costs, Pakistan
experienced an economic downturn because of a hostile attitude towards investments and
some economic practices scared of potential investors
Politically, rulers have browbeaten their opponents using Sharia. For example, Sharif ’s
supporters aligned with the religio political parties, and used Islam and Sharia to
embarrass Benazir Bhutto, denouncing a woman’s leadership of a predominantly Muslim
country. Using religious populism, Sharif’s supporters demanded the implementation of
Sharia laws. In the end it was a discomfited Sharif who as Prime Minister, was obliged to
fulfill the demand of his coalition partners to impose Sharia laws in every sphere. For
example, religious legislators demanded the end to riba (interest on loans and savings)
and other radical changes, which deeply unnerved him. To pre-empt growing pressure
from the religious parties, a watered-down version of the Sharia Bill was pushed through
by Sharif’s Muslim League government in the National Assembly.
The new legislation reinforced the Objectives Resolution and the other Islamic clauses in
the 1973 Constitution, further Islamicizing Pakistan. It required the government to
Islamicize the national judicial, educational and economic system. Such provisions
simply ignored the plurality of Pakistan and displayed a disregard for non-Muslims’
aspirations. The exclusion of minorities from socio economic life, higher positions in the
civil and military sectors had been the everyday experience of discrimination and racism
18 .Saleem, A., Pakistan Aur Aqlieetain (Pakistan and minorities,) Karachi, 2000
65

across the country. Now, Pakistan’s officially institutionalized discrimination, added
another dimension to the marginalization of minorities and women.
The emphasis on exclusionary nationhood as portrayed in the various forms of
constitutional arrangements from the Objectives Resolution to Zia’s amendments has
entrenched minorities’ feelings of inequality. As the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and
Settlement (CLAAS) stated: ‘Laws are not only a reflection of society’s attitudes to any
given issue; they can change the prevailing attitudes. Good laws can help foster tolerance;
bad laws can fire hate. Attitudes once set into motion are hard to bring to rest. The
Blasphemy Law has very rapidly incited hate and its misuse continues with impunity.’
(1999)
Backlash: Minoritiy as Scapegoat
In recent years, western policies in the Muslim world have been seen as inherently anti-
Muslim and based on double standards. The tragic human sufferings in Afghanistan,
Bosnia, Iraq and Palestine, and the denigration of Islam in some quarters following the
attacks on the World Trade Center (September 2001), infuriated many, especially,
Muslims. The massacre of worshippers in Bahawalpur on 28 October 2001 and the
grenade attacks on a church in Islamabad on 17 March 2002, followed by similar attacks
in Murree and Taxila, were linked with the fury of some Muslims towards the West, with
Pakistani Christians used as a scapegoat. Further, the frequent fissures and tensions in
Indo-Pakistani relations add to anti-Hindu feeling in Pakistan, making the community
feel increasingly insecure.
Physical attacks, social stigmatization, psychological insecurity, forced conversions and
continued institutional degradation characterize the position of religious minorities in
Pakistan. Recent anti-Shia attacks also show a growing sectarian intolerance towards
Muslim ‘minorities’. On 20 February 2002, five members of a Shia family in
Chichawatni, near Multan, were murdered by Sunni militants. Six days later, 12 Shia
worshippers were gunned down in Rawalpindi in a mosque, while several others were
critically injured.
Pakistan is undergoing a process of fragmentation and exclusion along seemingly
religious fault-line, but a deeper analysis may well show that in fact the feuds may not be
religious, but rooted in economic and other factors. A small number of militants have
been able exploit the politco-economic frustrations of the rest, and these gather
momentum within a non-democratic system. Moreover, the politics of disempowerment
and international or regional geo-political factors further fuel this backlash. This is
exacerbated by prevailing prejudices stemming from ignorance about other religious
traditions and by stereotypes of Christians, Hindus, Kalasha, Shias and others. The
religious bigots inflame hatred through the mosques and on the streets, against non-
Muslim minorities as well as against (Shia) Ismailis, Twelvers and Zikris. 19
19 According to the Minority Rights Group’s annual report, Pakistan has risen by eight places to occupy
eighth position on the MRG’s ranking of countries where minorities are at risk.
66

Survey Finding
70% of the minority population is below 25 years of age with nearly 45% below 18
years [1- 5yrs:17%; 6-17yrs : 28%; 18-25 yrs: 22% and 25-60yrs : 30%] ⊕
Out of the 5244 family members above 18 years of age, 49 percent are illiterate
(males 38%:female 56%).
21.4% have are matriculate or have higher qualification.
97% respondents state they have complete freedom in performing their religious
rituals and prayers.
73% say people of other religions do participate in their religious festivals
Some 68% of respondents say they own properties in the districts where they live and
9% percent own property in additional districts.
97% males and 86% female members of minorities have registered their votes
93 % of the minority population participates in casting votes.
39.45 % respondents say that they are discriminated in educational institutions
30% of the respondents say that they are discriminated on the basis of religion in job
market.
20.% cite workplace as places where they face discrimination on the basis of religion.
30% of respondents cite hospitals as places where they face discrimination
4% cite government departments
⊕ figures rounded
Mapping of Religious Minorities in Sind & Baluchistan 20
Survey focused largely on the Christian and Hindu minorities which were concentrated in
these 10 districts. Mapping was structured around two components, 40 Focus Group
Discussions followed by Survey Questionnaire administered to1000 respondents
Teaching in schools is heavily oriented towards Islamicizing pupils. For example, 20
extra marks are given to any candidate for admission into schools and higher institutions
for memorizing the Qur’an. Even prison inmates receive a remission for learning or
memorizing the Qur’an. The lack of a proper educational system and a holistic syllabus
20 Bauchistan districts of Noshki, Bolan, Nasserabad, Jaffarabad and Sibi; Sind districts are Umarkot,
Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Tharparkat and Badin.
67

that takes Pakistan’s plural traditions into account has only added to a great sense of
loss 21 .
Based on the 1998 census, Pakistan’s National Council for Justice and Peace (NCJP) in a
study ( 2001) of literacy profile of minorities’ found that the average literacy rate among
Christians in Punjab, is 34 per cent, compared to the national average of nearly 47per
cent. The average literacy rate among the Jati (upper caste) Hindus is 34 percent,
scheduled castes (Dalits) 19 percent, and others (including Parsis, Buddhists, Sikhs and
nomads) is 17 per cent, respectively. For Ahmadis, it is slightly higher than the national
average of 51.67 per cent. Similarly, on the other socio-economic indicators, minorities
were mostly found lagging behind 22 .
Further, the economic marginalization of the minorities’, that is, their confinement to
menial, low-paid and low-status work, especially for Christians and Hindus – has
seriously diminished their self-esteem, besides consolidating ethno-religious stereotypes.
With a few exceptions, most Christians (male and female) work as street sweepers and
suffer from discrimination. The rural Hindus are mostly poor and lack organization, and
are vulnerable to feudal and police oppression.
There are inflammatory posters in the streets against minorities; for example, there are
anti-Ahmadi statements outside mosques, and signs outside hair salons and water
purification plants prohibiting non-Muslims’ entry 23 . Further, frequent graffiti betray the
strong anti-minority prejudices of sections of society. In the Federal Ministry of
Religious and Minorities Affairs – the only one among 40 ministries to deal specifically
with minorities – there is an inscription in the main hall: ‘Of course, Islam is the best
religion in the eyes of GOD’. To Muslims, this may be right given its Qur’anic context,
but stating this in a national ministry dealing with non-Muslims, shows a misplaced
emphasis on uniformity.
In the media, the mastheads of Pakistan’s Urdu newspapers and magazines routinely
carry a verse from the Qur’an, while the teachings or beliefs of other religions are not
displayed at all. Some of the English press and some Urdu newspapers and magazines
generally play a responsible role while reporting on plural issues, but communal elements
popularize anti-minority myths, especially during a local or regional crisis. Radio and
television offer programmes on Islam but make no organized effort to raise awareness of
other religions or of the need for pluralism.
Also, there have been instances when the incitement of religious hatred has been used to
acquire properties belonging to minorities. Mob attacks have taken place and cases of
blasphemy have been lodged against non-Muslims. In the early 1990s, the case of
21 When asked about a new educational curriculum to create a greater sense of respect and sharing of plural
traditions, asenior official in the Ministry of Religious and Minority Affairs was indifferent. Instead, he
asked the author to visit the Ministry of Education in each of the four provinces as ‘it did not come within
the purview of this Ministry’.
22 NCJP, Human Rights Monitor – 2001, Lahore, NCJP, 2001
23 National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), Human Rights Monitor – 1999, Lahore, NCJP, 2000
68

Salamat Masih of Gujranwala, and others, made headlines. One of the accused had to
seek exile, while two others were murdered on court premises.
Land and property alienation of the non Muslims has been aided and abetted by the
policies of the Evacuee Property Trust, which since the early 1950’s administered and
allocated properties to immigrants. These properties belonged to non-Muslims who left
for India during partition. Various landowning groups seek out prime properties housing
temples and churches, and use religion as a ploy to dislodge the owners. The recent anti-
Christian disturbances in Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Khanewal were linked with such
‘land mafia’ groups.
Conclusion
The policies and actions of non representative regimes and the difficult inter state
relations have worsened intercommunity relations in South Asia. Moreover, the forces of
politico-religious populism and extremism are encouraged by poverty and
disillusionment over the failure of democratic governance and development. As admitted
by the government in 2001, every third Pakistani is living below the poverty line. From
17 percent in 1990s, the number living in poverty has deepened to 34 per cent by 2000.
The most vulnerable are the minorities. It is argued that the situation of the minorities’ of
abject poverty, discriminatory lack of development infrastructure, high rate of
unemployment, the emphasis on religious uniformity are all linked to official policy of
populist appeasement has reduced millions of people in Pakistan to feeling like second
and even third class citizens. In 1992, coding religious affiliation on national identity
cards was nearly conceded, and was withdrawn only after strong protest from civic
groups. However, the reiteration of the khatam-i-nubawwat (the finality of the
Prophethood) is formally institutionalized on passport applications and voter registration
forms. This reaffirmation is supplemented with the rejection of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as
a ‘false claimant’ to the succession of the Prophet. It has de-facto disenfranchised
Ahmadi community as well raised obstacles in their acquiring passports.
Ahmadis and Christians are the communities that have most regularly documented cases
of discrimination and oppression, both at the official and societal levels. While each
minority community may have its own respective safety networks, the Christians in this
sense seem to be better organized, with church-based and secular organizations emerging
to focus on human rights. The rural nature of most of the Hindu communities has
precluded such initiatives. On the other hand, Parsis and Ismailis (the latter not
characterized as a minority) are the most organized and well-knit communities. The
Ahmadis are well-organized and affluent, yet official and societal anger puts many
restrictions on their social and religious mobility, and their organization.
The reality of Pakistan is that it is a multi-ethnic, multi religious country. Pakistani
nationalism must symbolize the plural realities of society rather than demanding or
imposing a unitary nationhood. We argue, that the overwhelming majority of the
population of our country remains tolerant and in favor of giving equal rights to
69

minorities and women. This was evinced in a major national survey undertaken in 1997,
which showed that 74 per cent of the people supported a ban on sectarian groups; 81 per
cent demanded a stop to hate-inciting khutbas (sermons) in mosques; 67 per cent rejected
the Taliban-style restrictions on women; 59 per cent wanted to give women the right to
divorce; 63 per cent believed in giving equal weight to the evidence of women and men;
74 per cent favored family planning; and 74 per cent supported joint electorates 24 .
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24 ‘What do Pakistanis really want?’ Herald (Karachi), January 1997
70

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Antony’s-Macmillan, 1999.
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Ethnicity, Oxford, St Antony’s-Macmillan, 1997.
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Talbot, I., Pakistan: A Modern History, London, Hurst and Co., 1998.
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71

Wolpert, S., Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1994.
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News, Newsline, Ux-o-Aeena, and various reports by Amnesty International and
Human Rights
72

Strangers in the House
Minorities in Pakistani Textbooks
Rubina Saigol ♣
Collectively Remembering, Forgetting Together
Historical narratives are a part of the process of nation building and state formation.
They construct national memory and determine what we collectively choose to remember
and what we are required to forget as we tell the tale of our collective coming into being
as a nation and as a state. Carefully crafted national stories of suffering, loss, death, pride
and martyrdom enable a diverse and heterogeneous group of people to feel an imagined
sense of oneness called national identity. This identity is manufactured by exclusions
(forgetting, eliding, overlooking) those who do not belong, and inclusions (remembering,
glorifying and claiming) those who do belong to the nation as it is officially defined,
agreed and stamped and approved. Those who form an integral part of the nation, the
insiders, are collapsed into an imagined homogeneity of goodness, while those who are
external to the nation’s, forever challenged and precarious, self-definition- the outsiders,
are also homogenized into an evil or wicked oneness.
Nations, and particularly newly formed states, reiterate the story of their coming into
being, lest the carefully woven tale is forgotten. The wounds inflicted by the evil
outsiders, the perpetual enemies, are relived so that future generations do not forget the
blood spilled and the sacrifice given that nurtured the infant tree at its birth. Similarly,
the heroic deeds, real or conjured , of those who spilled their blood are remembered,
reiterated, repeated, retold, embellished and re-written as often as the nation’s actual
existence is challenged or threatened by enemies within and enemies without.
There are many forms of writing the legends and folktales of the nation for national
memory. There are cinematic representations, television serials, nationalist poetry and
songs, national day parades and towering monuments that all recount the ‘great history of
the nation and state’ for posterity. However, the most effective, far-reaching and reliable
method of ensuring the continuity of nationalist legends and myths is through the
omnipresent, ubiquitous and easy to acquire and grasp textbook – the textbook enables
the future generation to remember itself, its history and its glory with an ease rarely
available to other forms of public talking. It is cheap, often compulsory, available
everywhere and there is always the teacher, the school, the textbook board and the
ministry of education to ensure that the national story is told, reiterated, revised,
remembered and spewed out faithfully on an examination paper. The latter method
♣ This paper is a shortened version of the article ‘Enemies Within and Enemies Without: Representation
of the Other in Textbooks’. In Futures: The Journal of Policy, Planning and Futures. ‘Futures Beyond
Nationalism’. Vol. 37. No. 9, pp. 1005-1035.November 2005. Imtiaz Ahmad (Ed) Elsevier.
73

ensures that it is fully absorbed and internalized. The entire system built around the
textbook is designed to ensure that it works – that it reproduces the myths of the state and
legends of the nation.
One of the biggest problems in the national tale is - ‘those who do not fit’ or ‘those who
do not fit completely’ into the national narrative. These are the blemishes and stains on
the national fabric that rupture its smooth surface, taint its pure weave and become
uncomfortable reminders that all is not great and wonderful in the story of the nation.
Either these ‘spots’ have to be removed to ‘clean’ the carefully designed fabric, or these
‘others’, these intrusive outsiders that do not belong, have to be covered up, concealed
and forgotten. They have to be re-written or written out of history. These are the
minorities that the nation can either not acknowledge or claim only partially as they are
reminders of a connection with the past that must be forgotten for the sake of the nation’s
purity. They are also reminders of the nation’s connections to many ‘others’, to many
outsiders who do not belong. They are unhappy reminders that the nation is not quite as
pure as it would like to be – that it is mixed, that it has a multiplicity of ‘others’,either
religious, linguistic or ethnic that rupture its otherwise monotonous and uninterrupted tale
of oneness and glory.
A Tale of Two Nations
Pakistan’s tale of the two nations is riddled with stains and spots that do not fit into the
neat national design. The story of the Pakistani nation, built on the epic idea of two
eternally opposed groups, forever enemies and permanently separated by history,
experience and memory, is fractured by the presence of too many ‘others’. Inside the
territory of the pure, residing in the very heart of the land of the pure, are groups of
people belonging to other religions – Christians, Hindus, Parsis – all those who interrupt
the tale of religious oneness crafted with so much painstaking effort. Additionally, there
are Sikhs lurking on the borders, and Jews some distance away who also figure in one or
another way in the story of the nation.
To make matters worse for the spinners of the national tale, there are/were linguistic and
ethnic minorities – those Bengalis sitting on the golden jute, those Sindhis with their
access to the riches of the sea in the south, those Balochis sitting on those fabulous riches
deep within the land and those Pakhtoons holding forth in the mountains of the north.
The Punjabi, Muslim, Sunni, Hanafi (preferably male) – the arch prototype Pakistani – is
beleaguered by these many others on all sides. He must subjugate them, bring them into
line, erase them and, if nothing else works, write them out of HIS-story so that HE can
live happily forever in his fairyland of the five rivers, his Punjab, knowing that the world
is HIS oyster.
The most effective tool of the powerful – the powerful of any nation, ethnicity or religion
– is the word and the image, that help forge that ultimate weapon – the textbook and in
particular the social studies history textbook. Through its words and images, the
textbook silences and speaks, hides and reveals, tells and refuses to tell the story of the
nation, its others, its enemies, its outsiders and most especially – the outsiders within. It
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is these outsiders within, the minorities that intercept the national story in so many places
that are most difficult to define or not define, erase, silence or make invisible.
One way that ingenious weavers of the national tale use to deal with these uncomfortable
presences is to turn them into cameos – the inherently evil Hindu, the trickster and cheat
Englishman, the knife-wielding, butchering Sikh, the moneylender Jew and the backstabbing
Bengali.
Inherently Evil: The Hindu Other
The Hindu ‘other’, is represented as racist and fundamentalist. One sub-heading in a book
on Civics is ‘Hindu Revivalism and Fundamentalism’. The intentions of the Hindu other
are described in the following way:
The Hindus had become very ambitious during the 19 th century. They were dreaming of
making this vast sub-continent a Hindu land by driving out the British rulers and
exterminating the Muslims whom they called Malichchas or dirty people. It was the
same kind of racialism and race-hatred that is found in all aggressive peoples and nations,
like the ancient Aryans who called the non-Aryans as Dasyus or black-demons, or like
Americans and Europeans who call the non-white peoples of the world as ‘gooks’, etc. 1
One fails to see how the author discovered that all the Hindus had become ambitious
during the 19 th century, and how did he have access to what they were dreaming about.
Nonetheless, these assertions are made in the text along with the claim that the same kind
of racialism and race-hatred is found among all aggressive peoples and nations. The
examples given are the Aryans, Americans and Europeans. Here all the perceived
‘others’ are lumped together and provided with the attribute of aggression that allegedly
‘all of them’ possess as a natural trait. Since the construction of the ‘other’ is
simultaneously a construction of the Self as the absence of all that the ‘other’ represents,
it is implied that Muslims are not aggressive or ambitious and do not have expansionist
dreams. The history of the sub-continent gives the lie to such a suggestion, but then what
is often missing from this kind of history is History itself.
There is a subtle but discernible shift in the gendered nature of the discourse of the self
and other. In my earlier study of the textbooks of the Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Bhutto and
Zia-ul-Haq eras, I argued that textbook writers tend to create the Muslim heroes in highly
masculine, active, potent and virile terms, while constructing the Hindu ‘other’ in
feminized terms such as weak, unable to fight, timid and passive. 2 While this is still the
case in many textbooks which glorify Muslim conquest and warriors, there is a
perceptible tendency in the current textbooks to construct the ‘others’ of Muslims in
terms that are aggressive, masculine, active and potent, even though negative. When
Muslim conquest, glory and imperial pursuit are discussed, the masculinist discourse
becomes celebratory. The heroes of the Muslims are great, strong, brave and valiant.
However, when the ‘other’ is discussed in active and masculine terms, the discourse
shifts to a different moral ground. In the case of non-Muslims, the desire for war is
1 Mazhar-ul-Haq, Civics of Pakistan, p. 5.
2 Rubina Saigol, Knowledge and Identity.
75

aggressiveness and Hindus are aggressive, ambitious, hostile, war-mongerers and antipeace.
The Muslim Self takes on feminine postures vis a vis hostile ‘others’ who have
evil designs against them.
However, occasionally the ultra masculine Muslim image as conqueror, invader and
warrior appears in the social studies textbooks written in 2002 but produced under the
influence and curriculum guidelines of the era of General Zia. The curriculum prepared
by the National Curriculum Committee, Ministry of Education in 1984 requires that the
spread of Islam and Mohd. Bin Qasim’s invasions in India be taught to students. 3 Under
‘Affective Objectives’ the curriculum includes ‘aspirations for Jehad’, love and regard
for Islamic values, and among the concepts to be given to students, the curriculum
includes martyrdom, valour and the idea of a cannon. 4 The activities suggested for
students include drawing the picture of a cannon, tracing Mohd. Bin Qasim’s conquest
route and discussing Islam’s advent into the sub-continent. The following passage from
the social studies textbook for Class VI illustrates how the curriculum of 1984 is realized
in a textbook of 2002:
In the middle of the city of Dabel there was a Hindu temple. There was a flag hoisted on
top of it. The Hindus believed that as long as the flag kept flying, nobody could harm
them. Mohd. Bin Qasim found out about this belief. The Muslims began to catapult
stones at the temple and at the flag, ultimately making it fall to the ground. The whole
city became tumultuous and the Hindus lost heart. Some Muslims clambered up the
walls of the temple and forced open the door. Qasim’s army entered the city and after
conquering it, announced peace. The Muslims treated the vanquished so well that many
Hindus converted to Islam. 5
This description of breaking down the barriers of the sacred space of the ‘other’ and
making a forcible entry to take over is typical of several other depictions that appeared in
the textbooks of the era of General Zia. A very similar account of the forced and violent
entry of Mahmud of Ghazni into a Hindu temple, along with the defeated and begging
postures of Hindus, appears in a Class V textbook produced in 1987. 6 The scene in this
story starts with the idea of a flag hoisted atop a temple and the belief that as long as it
keeps flying nobody could harm the Hindus. This description is akin to the maintenance
of virginity and its public announcement. The next image is one of Muslims catapulting
stones at the temple and the flag making it fall down, and then clambering up the walls of
the temple and forcing open the door. The connotation of rape by Muslims and the loss
of Hindu ‘virginity’ is unmistakable. Sacred and protected space is violated by force and
then desecrated. A number of descriptions of conquest and victory bear resemblance to
rape. However, immediately after this triumph of the Masculine Muslim Self, the posture
of peace is assumed. The feminine side re-emerges and the kind treatment of the Hindus
is announced. The sudden shift from a violent act against the Hindus, to the
announcement of peace and good treatment is not explained. One fails to understand
how such a scenario could have led to peace and such good treatment that many Hindus
3
Social Studies Curriculum, National Curriculum Committee, National Bureau of Curriculum and
Textbooks, Islmabad, 1984. p. 16.
4
Ibid. p. 16.
5
Social Studies Textbook for Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, March 2002, Lahore, p. 63.
6
See Rubina Saigol’s Knowledge and Identity, p. 231.
76

voluntarily embraced Islam. The great deal that has been left unsaid, the gaps left open in
this compressed account would explain the puzzling shifts. However, compression
serves to create the impression that despite excessive aggression, the Muslims were
basically peace loving and the moral Self is retrieved. We need to remember that in most
stories told to children, aggression is attributed to the ‘others’ and peace to the self. Page
72 of the social studies book, produced in 2002, highlights the idea of Jehad against
foreign rule, recommended in the 1984 curriculum guidelines.
Another continuity that one notices from the textbook of the era of General Zia is the
construction of Hindu/Muslim polar opposition in the description of architecture. The
social studies textbook for Class V produced in 1988 contrasts a Muslim mosque with
Hindu temples in a manner which shows the Hindu temple as dark, narrow and enclosed
and the Muslim sacred space as open, well-lit and clean. 7 In my work on the Zia era
textbooks, I argued that the contrasting description of sacred space is gendered in that
Hindu sacred space has associations with femininity (narrow, dark and mysterious,
internal), while the Muslim space represents masculine power (open, well-lit, spacious,
wide, external). In the Class VI social studies textbook produced in 2002, similar images
are transferred on to wider secular and profane spaces. This is how the Class VI textbook
describes ‘Muslim Contributions to the Architecture of the Sub-Continent’:
The Muslims made valuable contributions to the architecture of the sub-continent. Prior
to the advent of the Muslims, the people of the sub-continent resided in narrow,
congested and dark houses. The architecture of the Hindus exhibited narrowness,
labyrinthine complications, layer upon layer of complexity and conical shaped structures.
The architectural refinement of the Muslims exhibited openness, vast spaces and external
glory. They built open, airy and grand structures. 8
The association of narrowness, congestion and darkness, which in the earlier discourse
was associated with Hindu sacred space, is now transferred to the Hindu home. The
image of ‘labyrinthine complications, layer upon layer of complexity’ seems designed to
suggest that the Hindus were somehow ‘not straight and simple’ and that there were
deeper, darker layers in their psyche that suggest ‘something crooked’ or ‘mysterious’.
This description fits in with the notion that Hindus are devious. The Muslim contribution
is defined as ‘architectural refinement’ exhibiting openness (read honesty), vast spaces
and external glory (read imperial domination). The word ‘open’ is used again in the last
sentence to underscore the idea that Muslims are somehow more honest and transparent
than the more ‘opaque’ Hindus. Since the discourse is written within the two nation
differentiation, the Hindus represent all that is denied and repressed within the Muslim
Self.
The caste system is provided as yet another proof of the Hindu ‘other’ as an unjust and
uncivilized creature. What is omitted from the discourse is the fact that Muslim Pakistani
society too is torn by a form of caste system and biradari system, despite the claims of
Muslim equality. What is silenced here is the fact that in so-called ‘equal’ Pakistani
society, the small Hindu minority living mainly in Sindh, and in particular the Hari
7 See Rubina Saigol’s Knowledge and Identity, p. 235.
8 Social Studies Textbook for Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, p. 67.
77

community, is subject to the most inhuman treatment by Muslim landlords. All Hindus
are reduced to the stereotype of ‘The Hindu’ whose loyalties to the Muslim state are
always suspect as he is ideologically placed across the border in India while his body
resides in Pakistan. He therefore has to continually prove, aver and reassert his loyalty to
the Muslim-defined state.
Trickster and Cheat: The Christian Other
Pakistan’s largest minority group consists of Christians who are ideologically perceived
to be a part of the ‘Christian nation’ across the globe. Ever since the era of General Ziaul-Haq’s
Islamization, and even more so since 9/11, the Christians have to continually
prove their loyalties to the Islamic state. Most social studies and history textbooks barely
mention even the existence of Pakistani Christians, an erasure and a silence that solidifies
the tenuous notion of an internally unified nation. However, suddenly and from nowhere,
in the social studies textbook for Class VII which focuses on the crusades, a generous
number of pages are allotted to Christianity and Christendom. In most other cases,
Christians enter the textbook scene only as ‘The English’ or ‘The British’, terms reserved
to represent the cruelties of colonialism and imperialism.
The Christian and English ‘other’ also plays a significant role because of the interlocking
history of British imperialism and Indian and Pakistani nationalism. The English seem to
stand for Christianity as well as the West in general. In the context of the Indian struggle
for independence, the ‘other’ is referred to either as ‘the English’ or ‘the British’, the
latter term being usually reserved for the discussion of imperialism. In the context of the
crusades, the reference is consistently to Christians as the ‘other’. In the case of the
freedom movement, the religious identity of the third interlocutor in the English-Hindu-
Muslim triad is not paramount. Rather, the national identity of Englishness is the
preferred mode of speaking about the English, in sharp contrast to the preferred mode of
speaking about the Hindus only in religious terms. For textbook writers, the Hindus and
Muslims constituted religious communities while the British were a secular force. This
representation contrasts with the preferred form used by Indian textbook writers to refer
to the Congress as secular and the Muslim League as communal. 9
In nearly all the references to the English or British within the context of the
independence movement, the English appear as conspirators, tricksters and cheats. 10
Cruelty is also attributed to them, especially when referring to the Jallianwala Bagh and
other incidents of massacre, but their primary characteristic appears to be cleverness,
trickery and a propensity towards conspiring. For example the Class VI social studies
textbook states that ‘after conquering, the English treated the local population with great
cruelty. They murdered thousands of men, women and children with cruel abandon.
9 Krishna Kumar in his Prejudice and Pride states that Indian textbooks are written within the binary of
secular versus communal identity and struggle, p. 207. The Indian textbooks oppose secular nationalism to
communalism. The Pakistani textbooks, as I have argued in my book Knowledge and Identity are
overwhelmingly within the two nation binary which is based on opposing religious identities. However,
the English are seldom, if ever, referred to as Christians while discussing the freedom struggle.
10 See for example the social studies textbook for Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, p. 75-77.
78

They destroyed the property of the local people. They exiled the last Mughal King to
Rangoon’. 11 In this description the English are cruel, murderous and uncivilized as they
murdered women and children with cruel abandon. The British argument about the
uncivilized and savage natives is turned upon its head to show lack of civilization of the
rulers. The story of the cruelty of the British ‘other’ recurs in several textbooks, partly to
justify independence and partly as a rebuttal of the charge of Muslim cruelty and lack of
civilization.
The Christian ‘other’ is presented in the following way in social studies textbooks:
The people of Africa requested the Muslims to invade their lands to save them from the
tyranny of their Christian rulers who extorted taxes from them. 12
The Christian rulers are not only tyrannical, but they extort taxes from their subjects. The
excluded piece of knowledge is that Muslims also extracted taxes from Muslims as well
as Jaziya (religious tax) from non-Muslims. The depiction of tyrannical Christian rulers
requires a contrast with the self, which is provided in the following way:
History has no parallel to the extremely kind treatment of the Christians by the Muslims.
Still the Christian kingdoms of Europe were constantly trying to gain control of
Jerusalem. This was the cause of the Crusades. 13
The self is constructed as kind as opposed to the tyrannical ‘other’. The cause of the
crusades is quickly attributed to the militarist and expansionist designs of the ‘other’. No
historical, political, economic or social explanation is attempted, nor the complex
dynamics of the crusades are provided. One singular cause is attributed to the prolonged
conflict. One form of the reproduction of ideology, and with it identity, is
oversimplification –the removal of all complexity by reducing conflict to Them and Us
categories. The aim of this pedagogy is not the inculcation of understanding or
intellectual reflection, but the creation of religious identity.
The Christian ‘other’ is also a liar and cheat. In spite of the kind treatment of the
Christians by Muslim rulers, the former had inexplicable proclivities toward lying. As
the textbook historian states:
Some of the Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem fabricated many false stories of suffering. If
they were robbed on the way, they said it were (sic) the Muslims who robbed them. 14
Tales of suffering under Muslims are mere fabrication and Muslims are of course
incapable of robbing. The textbook historian then bemoans the fact that all the Christian
countries united against the Muslims and sent large armies to attack them and justified it
by saying that Jesus Christ allowed it. “The Pope was caught in a religious frenzy” says
the textbook. The Christian ‘other’ thus also had tendencies toward needless “religious
11
Social Studies Textbook for Class VI, p. 77.
12
Ibid. p. 21.
13
Ibid. p. 25.
14
Ibid. p. 26.
79

frenzy”. The major absence in this tale of the two nations is that Pakistan’s non Muslim
minority has suffered a great deal of oppression at the hands of the state which has used
the Blasphemy Law to systematically target Christians and many of them have become
its victims including an eleven year old child, Salamat Masih. Christian churches have
been burned in Islamabad, Bahawalpur and Christian organizations such as Idara-e-Amno-Insaf
in Karachi was attaked and seven workers were killed in cold blood. The nation
writes its tale in blood – on the pages of history texts and on the bodies of its non-
Muslims citizens.
The Greedy Usurer: The Jewish Other
The Jewish ‘other’ of the Muslim self does not figure very prominently in middle and
secondary level textbooks. This omission is noteworthy because anti-semitic sentiments
are widespread in Pakistan where people overwhelmingly support the Palestinian cause.
One possible reason for this relative silence within textbooks may be because of the
physical distance between Jews and Pakistani Muslims. There are hardly any Jews living
in Pakistan who could pose a direct threat to the Pakistani self. Although the Hindu
minority in Pakistan is also miniscule, the geographical contiguity of India reflects the
proximity of this threat. And, as already stated, the story of the two permanently inimical
nations is a Hindu Muslim story. While varying ‘others’ may enter the construction of
Muslim Pakistan, it is primarily the blood stained severance from the Hindu ‘other’ that
incites memories of pain and sorrow.
However, as in the case of Indian and Hindu, no distinction is made between Jews and
Zionists. When the Jews do appear in textbooks they are almost always as Zionists, and
there is no concept of a non-Zionist Jewish person. Pakistan’s official foreign policy is
anti-Israel, and at times the impression one gets from public discourse is that all Jews are
perceived as Israelis. All Israelis are to be condemned as all of them are cruel, wicked
and imperialists. Fine distinctions between Jews, Israelis and Zionists are seldom made
in public discourse or textbook representations. There is generally scant mention of Jews
except while discussing Pakistan’s foreign policy or in the process of constructing a pan-
Islamic identity.
Whenever the Jews do appear in textbooks, they almost always play the role of Shylock –
the greedy, bloodthirsty usurer. They are forced into a singular and narrow identity of the
moneylender who charged very high rates of interest and destroyed the lives of people.
The Hindu moneylender (referred to as baniya in Pakistan) and the Muslim moneylenders
do not figure highly in the curricular discourse. The stereotype of the tight-fisted and
parsimonious Jew obliterates the possibility of a poor or destitute Jewish person. Such a
creature, it is assumed, does not exist. A generous, magnanimous, friendly or largehearted
Jewish person is also unthinkable since textbook categories are not prone to
dealing with complex categories.
In the construction of the Jewish ‘other’ once again there is continuity from the textbooks
of the earlier eras, which go as far back as the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. A social
studies textbook for Class VI produced in 1975 contrasts the time before Islam and after
80

its advent as dark/immoral/bad time versus good/moral and enlightened time of Islam. 15
After making a series of anti-Christian statements in which Christianity is presented as a
source of corruption and evil, the textbook historian turns towards the Jews and one of
the first sentences is about how rich trade had made them. This envy is followed by
accusations of how they corrupted their faith and misled and deceived the Holy Prophet
of Islam. The social studies textbook for Class VII, in the course of a discussion about
‘Islamic Society’, has this to say of the Jews:
Some Jewish tribes also lived in Arabia. They lent money to workers and peasants on
high rates of interest and usurped their earnings. They held the whole society in their
tight grip because of the ever increasing compound interest…In short there was no
sympathy for humanity. People were selfish and cruel. The rich lived in luxury and
nobody bothered about the needy or those in suffering. 16
The Jews are thus primarily moneylenders who have no sympathy for humanity and are
selfish and cruel. The alleged Jewish tendency to accumulate wealth is contrasted in the
subsequent pages by asserting that Islam prescribes a just distribution of wealth and
caring for the poor and needy. 17 This kind of contrast of the self and other is designed to
create both religious communities as mutually exclusive categories that are morally
opposed.
The Knife-wielding Butcher: The Sikh Other
The Sikhs constitute another minority in India where Hindus form the majority religious
community. The Sikhs are, therefore, not a strong or direct threat to Pakistan. On the
contrary, Pakistan tacitly supports the occasional rumblings of anti-state feeling in
Eastern Punjab. However, when the Sikhs do make an occasional appearance, they are
dressed in militant attire, wielding the Kirpan (sword-like knife, dagger) as butchering,
murdering and marauding hordes. The stereotype of the ‘martial race’ is conjured up in
the representation of the Sikhs, who appear as those who challenged Muslim rule.
Usually two occasions are reserved for the appearance of Sikhs on the stage of textbook
dramas. One is their takeover of the Punjab after the decline of the Mughal empire, and
the second is at the time of partition when they appear as looters, marauders and killers.
At other times, the Sikhs simply disappear into the mist of ‘history’ lying somewhere
waiting to be ‘discovered’ as actors in the historical drama by some less forgetful
textbook writer. Their function in the politics of textbook writing in Pakistan seems to be
to underscore the sufferings inflicted upon hapless Muslims who sacrificed for the Land
of the Pure. Their only role is that of the villain in the shadows who appears suddenly
from nowhere to kill the hero of the drama, the besieged Muslim.
The first type of appearance of the Sikhs, as invaders of the Punjab, is exemplified by a
social studies textbook written for Class IV in 1998. According to this representation:
15
Rubina Saigol, Knowledge and Identity, pp. 225-226.
16
Social Studies for Class VII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, January 2002, p. 13.
17
Ibid. p. 18.
81

After the death of emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal dynasty became weak and
mutinies began in several provinces. When the government of the Punjab became weak,
the Sikhs began to increase their influence and started plundering the larger cities of the
Punjab. Lahore and Multan were plundered and looted several times by the Sikhs who
murdered the people and unleashed terror and violence upon them. Finally, the Sikh ruler
Ranjit Singh established his hold over the Punjab and the Sikhs and the Hindus together
committed many atrocities and cruelties upon the Muslims. They particularly desecrated
Muslim holy places and shrines. 18
When the hero of the textbook story, the Muslim assailed from all sides, becomes weak,
the Sikh butcher enters the stage as plunderer, looter and murderer. The Muslim takes on
the feminized posture of suffering as atrocities and cruelties are committed upon the self
by highly masculine ‘others’ who join hands to inflict misery upon the defenceless self.
In the story of the ‘independence movement’, the British collude with the Hindus against
the Muslim who is besieged from all sides. In the story of the decline of a Muslim
empire, the Sikhs collude with the Hindus against the Muslims. The ‘others’ of the self
seem to invariably collude in the conspiracy against Muslims. As all political, social and
historical dynamics are written out of the story of blood and violence, the reader is left
with no clue as to the causes of the alleged ‘collusion’. The impression that is left on the
young minds is that it is the nature of the beast to shed blood. The projection of all
violent tendencies on to the ‘other’, serves to cleanse the moral self of any aggressive
propensities.
The second appearance of the murdering, knife-wielding Sikh around the time of
partition can be viewed in the following depiction taken from the Pakistan Studies
textbook for Classes IX and X produced in March 2002:
When the Hindus and Sikhs realized that Pakistan is being established, they started riots
in parts of the Punjab. As a result hundreds of thousands of Muslims were wounded and
murdered. In this difficult time, the Muslims of the Punjab did not let go of fortitude and
strength and welcomed the refugees from Indian territory and were generous to them.
They proved that Muslims always help each other. 19
In the gory tale of wounding and murdering at partition, the story of killing and
murdering by Muslims is a silence in the text. It has been recorded by many noted
scholars, that during partition violence, rape and murder were committed by all religious
communities against all others. 20 The idea of the textbook storyteller is to underline the
sacrifice and suffering of Muslims in the blood-drenched drama of the creation of state
and nation. The wounds are reiterated lest we forget how our blood was spilt for the
homeland. This kind of reiteration of injury is a nationalist remembering, as it adds
poignancy and urgency to the tale of the making of the nation. The Sikhs perform their
‘historical’ role as those who shed our innocent blood as we departed on our way to the
homeland.
18 Social Studies Textbook for Class IV, 1998. Punjab Textbook Board. p. 82.
19 Pakistan Studies Textbook for Classes IX and X, Punjab Textbook Board, p. 32.
20 See Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s Borders and Boundaries and Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of
Silence, for details of the kinds of atrocities committed by all sides against all sides in the formation of the
nation.
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Deprived of any other knowledge of the Sikhs, as indeed of Hindus, Christians or Jews,
the student is left with a one-dimensional picture of the ‘other’, the inherently evil Hindu,
the conspiratorial Christian, the usurious Jew and the butchering Sikh. The Muslim
represents the absence of all that is attributed to these various, shifting and multiple
‘others’. The appeal of Shylock as in ‘when you prick us, do we not bleed’, is not
allowed to these ‘others’. They do not suffer, bleed or sacrifice, only we do. They do not
have any noble moral intentions, generosity, kindness, justice, fairness or forgiveness –
only we do. We do not have any cruel, murderous, imperial or conquering impulse – only
they do. In this manipulation of knowledge, textbook tellers of tales, construct our
fractured, broken and denuded identities rooted in ‘otherness’, ‘difference’ and
alienation. Our common or shared past experience with others is written out of the tale of
the two nations.
The Back-Stabber: The Bengali Other
The national narrative is interrupted at many points by ‘others’ residing within its
territory and pushing at its seemingly inviolate boundaries. The stranger in the house
comprises the religious, parochial, provincial and regional minorities who have never
been fully included into the shifting self. At times, these dangerously close ‘others’ have
been rudely catapulted out of the definition of the national Muslim self, for example,
when the Qadianis were declared non-Muslims in 1974. At other times, these parts of the
self have violently ruptured through the layers of repression built around them and
broken away, as the East Pakistanis did in 1971. A nation defined as Muslim has never
been at ease with the non-Muslims residing within its territorial boundaries, as their
loyalties are forever suspect. While the national self may be engaged in a perpetual war
of self-definition in relation to the many inimical and hostile external ‘others’, it is also at
war with itself. Its boundaries, both ideological and physical, keep shifting in renewed
efforts to define and re-define itself. Pakistan perhaps has the unique distinction of being
the only country from which the majority seceded in 1971 and formed a separate
homeland.
When the quarrel is with a Hindu, Christian or Jewish ‘other’, religious justifications are
easily invoked in support of the besieged self. When the quarrel is with fellow Muslims,
not only does the story of the two nations become transparently fictional, the religious
basis of holy war cannot be invoked. Bangladesh becomes a gaping hole in national
memory. The only way to speak about it is through silence. This ‘other’ is a part of the
self, is not really an other. It is not really the self. The only way to define it is to not
define it. A self so constrained and confined within a religious self-definition, has no
language with which to speak of other definitions based on language or ethnicity. They
can only be erased from consciousness.
This is precisely what the textbooks do – they erase Bangladesh by not telling the tale.
There are many ways of not telling. One of these is to tell a different story, to speak half
the truth. The story of Bangladesh is silenced between half truths, and full lies. If ever
83

speech is used to create silences, it happens in the case of Bangladesh. One liners and
short phrases on Bangladesh at the end of chapters cover up oceans of unspoken horrors.
The compulsion to not remember requires the expenditure of energy on the different
story. Here is how the untold story of Bangladesh appears in the Civics textbook for
Class IX and X produced in 2001:
Certain political elements began to propagate that nation depends on language and
ethnicity instead of religion. This led to an increase in provincial prejudices. Shaikh
Mujib-ur-Rehman took full advantage and started telling the people that the people of
West Pakistan were exploiting them. He had the support of India and other enemies of
Pakistan to break Pakistan up into pieces. He started to sow hatred into the hearts of the
Bengalis. The Bengalis were influenced by this propaganda and as a result the Awami
League won the election overwhelmingly. Mujib started to propagate a confederation and
said that East Pakistanis can only develop under his 6 point formula. This was an evil
design dressed in the garb of provincial autonomy. The Awami Leaguers and the socalled
Mukti Bahini began the mass murder of non-Bengalis. They destroyed public
property. In this storm of murder and looting, nobody’s life and property was safe. At
every step the law of the land was violated. Bangladeshi flags were flown all over the
land. Finally in order to overcome this revolt, the Pakistan army was given authority.
India started to pass statements to incite the Bengalis against the Pakistan army. India
convinced them that the Pakistani army is inflicting cruelty upon them. Finally Mujib-ur-
Rehman was arrested and India, which was fully part of the conspiracy by Mujib, made a
great noise over this arrest. India used the insurgents and miscreants and started a
poisonous campaign against Pakistan all over the world. When India saw that it is
achieving its nefarious designs, it attacked Pakistan. The Pakistan army fought with full
courage for the sake of the pure land, they sacrificed their lives. If they had been allowed
to go on fighting, the enemy would never have succeeded, but because of incompetent
leadership in Pakistan, they had to surrender. So, finally East Pakistan became separate
from Pakistan due to treason of Awami League, and Indian aggression. The whole
Pakistani nation was tormented and writhing in the pain of this deep wound. 21
The entire episode of the formation of Bangladesh is relegated to the dark and insidious
realms of conspiracy. The Bengalis ‘stabbed us in the back’ by joining hands with India.
They committed the murder of non-Bengalis, they looted and they destroyed property.
The Bengalis started the violence and were responsible, along with conniving and
scheming India, for the deeply wounding break of Pakistan in 1971. There is a great deal
of silencing in this story. Why were the Bengalis so easily misled and convinced by
India’s propaganda? Why did they start killing non-Bengalis? Why did they believe that
the Pakistan army was committing atrocities upon them? None of these questions are
answered. The brevity and compression used here to describe events that have a long
history and background in Pakistani politics and economics, forestalls any critical
thinking about what parted us. What is absent here is also the role of the Pakistani
military, which receives plaudits for its exploits but no disapprobation or condemnation
of its well-known acts. In telling half the story, the textbook historians fail to mention
that the Awami League of East Pakistan had won the 1970 election overwhelmingly but
the elite establishment of West Pakistan refused to transfer power to a duly elected party.
This failure was at the center of the crisis of 1971. The myth of the moral and upright
self would fall apart if the real story were to be told instead of half truths and full lies.
21 Civics for Class IX and X, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2001, pp. 112-114.
84

The Self in the Other: Shared Pasts and Other Stories
In spite of attempts by the state to re-order the unacceptable past, fragments of that
forgotten past sneak into collective memory and create disturbance. The repressed
‘others’ in the national self are ruthlessly crushed by the state, which names them
‘traitors’, ‘anti-nationals’ and outsiders. These outsiders reside within the territory of the
state – they are the strangers within. They represent an uncomfortable continuity with the
past and refuse to be welded into acoherent and homogenized new wholeness. These are
the regional and ethnic entities that participate less in the power of the Centre, and
remember their connections to earlier belongings, long before the nation-state ever
emerged. They hold on to their languages, their unique cultural expressions, and their
own political and social vocabularies. They resist the Centre’s pressures to forcibly weld
them into the new imaginary of the state/nation. And they are duly punished, as the
militaries of the state appear with full force to make them forget forever who they once
were and who they wanted to be.
But in a dialectical way, the very instruments of power used to make them forget, become
tools which help them remember. The more the Indians tried to cling to what was
becoming Pakistan and drifting away, the more strongly did the new entity assert its
independence and broke all ties, not only political and economic, but cultural, social and
emotional. The more violent and angry its break, the more vociferously Pakistan enacted
and re-enacted its separation. In the same way, the more the Pakistani military tried to
hold on to East Pakistan, drenching every home there in blood and semen, intruding into
every space where nothing but hate prevailed for it, the more angrily did the Bengalis
push it out, never to let it in again. Harsh memories on all sides, made harsher with every
passing year, created many tales of blood and gore, tales that eventually found their way
only partially and in sanitized form into history textbooks as officially sanctioned truth.
Each sorrow on one side was a triumph on the other, every loss on one side was a symbol
of victory on the other. Some stories are silenced as they disrupt the official truth, others
find their way into obscure accounts that do not see the light of day. But lying deep
somewhere in the conscious and unconscious memories of ordinary people, are tales not
told in textbooks. These are poignant tales of love across the nation’s divides, stories of
friendship and bonds beyond the borders, narratives of common hopes and dreams shared
with the Other.
85

Muslims in Sri Lanka:
Political Choices of a Smaller Minority
Farzana Haniffa
Introduction
The Muslims of Sri Lanka are currently 8.9% of the population. And in a country whose
nation building project confined itself to the image of the Sinhala nation, and where its
protracted, over three decade long conflict has been historically cast as one between the
majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, narrative accounts of the country and the
conflict often do not represent or grapple with the presence of this other minority other
than through a cursory reference to their presence. However, the question of Sri Lanka’s
plural polity is not one that is emerging only at this late stage in the conflict. It had
troubled the colonial masters at the dawn of modern era, when modern forms of
governance were being considered as suitable for the colonised as well. In fact, in the
process of managing the affairs of state in Sri Lanka, the British, rather early on in their
administration made provision for communal representation. All investigations into
possible administrative structures for the country, the Colebrook – Cameron reforms, the
Manning reforms, the Donoughmour reforms and finally the Soulbury reforms,
acknowledged the complexity of the ethnic picture, and all, with the exception of the
Donoughmour constitution, reluctantly accepted some form of “communal” or ethnicity
based representation for the country. i However, the trend towards liberal government in
the colonial metropolis were reflected in the colony as a reluctance to foster communal
sentiment and there was a move away from the customary communal representation in
the donoughmour constitution of 1931. Uyangoda in his writings explores the manner in
which this legacy, of liberal late colonial reluctance to communalise the administration,
meshed well with the majoritarian impulses of the Sinhala elite. ii
Constitutionalism and minority rights in Sri Lanka are marked by minority anxieties
regarding majority dominance through representative democracy, and the majority
community’s absolute lack of sympathy or sensitivity to such anxieties. iii The assertion of
Sinhala nationalism, was seen by and large as the only sustained critical local response to
colonialism. Sinhala nationalist ideology has long seen itself as the flag bearers of a post -
colonial indigenous consciousness. Underpinning this consciousness is the dual
preoccupation that the minorities colluded with the colonial state, and that majority
entitlement had an ethical basis endorsed as it was by representative democracy.
The constitution at independence, that is, the Soulbury constitution, had several minority
rights guarantees. These included instructions to delimitation commissions to be mindful
of adequate minority representation in the delimitation of electoral districts, and the
injunction forbidding discrimination on religious or ethnic grounds. iv However, state
making in the aftermath of independence was done very much in line with a Sinhala
nationalist agenda, and the marginalisation of the minorities who were seen to have
benefited under the colonial administration, was very much a part of this ideology.
86

In the two constitution-making exercises that the Sri Lankan state engaged in, after
independence, both progressively did away with the minority rights guarantees in the
constitutions. The first did away with Section 29(2) and the second with the instructions
to delimitation commissions to be mindful of minority representation.
This paper is concerned with the Muslim community’s response to this process of
minority marginalisation. As many writers have pointed out, the formidable political
disadvantages that the Muslims as a collective have faced in Sri Lanka, have dictated
their political choices. v For instance, Muslims are less than 10% of the population of Sri
Lanka and are widely dispersed in different parts of the island. The only two significant
population concentrations are in the Ampara district of the Eastern Province and in the
Colombo district of the western province. As such, mustering a significant vote base that
was Muslim only is difficult, and assured only in the East.
Politics by Muslims
While the Tamil leadership reacted strongly to the Sinhalese refusal to guarantee minority
rights constitutionally, Muslim leaders of the time adopted a different approach of
working with the respective ‘national’ political parties that controlled the state. They
resorted to linking their fate to the relationships that Muslim parliamentarians were able
to forge with the respective national parties of which they were a part. This strategy has
been critiqued in the narratives of Sinhala nationalist entitlement as well as the discourse
of Tamil nationalist self-determination struggle. Muslims, bit players in both narratives,
are seen as collaborating with whoever was in power, switching from one national party
to another in keeping with political expediency and in denial of their ‘actual’ Tamil
ethnicity. vi Curiously, scholarship on the issue, too, has not addressed the question of
Muslim political engagement from a Muslim perspective and seriously interrogated what
benefits, if any, accrued to Muslims in this choice to suspend a Muslim political voice. vii
Muslim Politics at Independence: Strategy of Ethnic Blindness
Muslim political choices in the face of the refusal of a predominantly Sinhala state to
consider minority rights, has been to render their distinct religio-ethnic identity invisible
in the political realm. Such a position meshed well with liberal claims that ‘we are all
one’, but in the emergent ethnically polarized context, exacerbated by the electoral
reforms of 1987, it resulted in the increased political marginalisation of Muslim interests.
Many Muslim MPs of a previous era, embracing the principle of ethnic blindness,
contested seats and won from mostly multi ethnic constituencies. There were many such
persons including T.B.Jayah and Dr. M.C.M Kaleel, but the most significant example of
such an engagement is the highly respected former M.P for Balangoda, M.L.M.
Aboosally. He had the distinction of defeating the entrenched Kandyan Sinhala
aristocrats, the Ratwattes. viii
These Muslim MPs, given their political dependence on constituencies other than the
Muslim vote, did not think of themselves as Muslim MPs representing Muslim concerns.
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They rarely highlighted their ‘Muslimness’ or emphasised Muslim issues. Later, they
were criticised for not paying adequate attention to Muslim community concerns.
Muslims of this era were caught in the bind of not having Muslim specific political
representation, but of having to resort to Muslim MPs to speak on behalf of Muslim
concerns based on their ethnic affiliation. Such actions were ultimately of no political
benefit to the MPs themselves. Little attention has been paid by scholars to this particular
conundrum faced by Muslims. In the ethnicisation of politics, Muslims lost out as group
that was the last to ethnicise its own politics. Little surprise then that the Muslim MPs—
representing constituencies that were not necessarily Muslim-- were ill equipped to
address the urgent security concerns of Muslims in the North and East that emerged with
the escalation of the conflict. While arguably the material consequences of such a
marginalisation were negligible in the South, in the North and East the consequences
were dire.
Two other political figures from the Muslim community that have gained an important
place in the history of Muslim political engagement with the state are Badiuddeen
Mahmood and Razik Fareed. In the meagre references to Muslim politics in the histories
of Sri Lanka’s post colonial state, great prominence is given to these two Muslim figures
as representing Muslims’ chosen strategy of political engagement.
Fareed hailed from a wealthy Colombo Muslim family and entered politics in 1930. He is
famous for vociferously advocating a ‘standing by the majority’ position for Muslims,
and in particular, of supporting the institutionalization of Sinhala as the country’s only
national language, and backing the dominion status bill regardless of its inadequate
minority safeguards. As member of the education committee of the government of 1936,
Fareed encountered Tamil opposition to the promotion of Muslims as teachers in Tamil
language schools serving Muslim communities. Fareed, born and raised in the south, in a
Sinhala majority area, spoke all three languages, was most comfortable in English and
felt no special affinity for the Tamil language. Also, encountering at a very early stage in
his political career, what he construed as anti-Muslim and caste based sectarianism
amongst Tamils, Fareed thought it far more politic for Muslims to cast their lot with the
Sinhalese. Amongst the southern Muslims’ stereotypes of ‘the others’ – the Sinhalese are
seen as genial and easy going, and the Tamils as industrious, crafty and manipulative.
Such sentiments also seem to have had a part in motivating Fareed’s political choices.
Perhaps, given that the wrath of the genial Sinhalese when aroused was quite ferocious—
as Muslims of Fareed’s generation experienced in the 1915 anti Muslim riots -- Fareed
thought it more politic for Muslims to cast their lot with the Sinhalese.
Although Fareed, supported the Sinhala majority, he was arguably one of the more
“communal” minded of the Muslim representatives in parliament. Fareed’s political
career is marked by attempts to institutionalize ‘Muslim’ as an administrative category
within the state and thereby to have their cultural practices recognized and legitimized
institutionally. Fareed’s political achievements for the community were to gain
concessions for Muslims like leave for Friday prayers and the recognition of Meelad-un-
Nabi, the Prophet Mohamed’s birthday as a national holiday. During his time schools
with a majority of Muslim students were institutionalized as Muslim schools with special
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calendars, syllabi and uniforms. Fareed’s actions greatly contributed to the
institutionalization of a particular Muslim identity. However Fareed’s politics, were not
those that garnered much status for him within the various governments of which he was
a part. Indeed other than as a member of the three month long care- taker cabinet
following the assassination of Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, he held no
important positions within the governments.
Fareed as a prominent Muslim figure is seen as exemplary of Muslim political choices as
well as political gains. His emphasis on gaining recognition from the fledgling state for
Muslim religious and cultural practices, and having minimal say in questions of
governance are seen as emblematic of politics by Muslims. However, this was hardly the
case. Too much has been made of positions favoured by him and too little analysis has
been done of his minimal political clout. There were many different positions and
opinions among Muslims regarding the major issues of that time, and Fareed represented
only one of these.
The Badiudeen Mahmood, an influential figure in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)
is another important figure in Muslim politics. A friend and close confidante of S.W.R.D.
Bandaranaike, Mahmood was founder secretary of the SLFP and after the death of
Bandaranaike, was appointed member of the cabinet of two SLFP governments under
Bandaranike’s widow, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Mahmood represents yet another
way in which the Muslim leadership attempted to address their political marginalization
within the Sri Lankan polity. Unconstrained by any need to win at elections—Mahmood
was twice an appointed member-- Mahmood had a very autocratic approach to the
Muslim community and his plans for it. He identified the distinct educational
disadvantages of the Muslim population, and focused on policies to get redress, and to
that end Mahmood influenced first, the Education Minister Wijayananda Dahanayake and
later, taking on the portfolio of Education himself, did much to influence the
development of Muslim education.
At the political level, Mahmood was committed to the success of his party and
manipulated Muslim vote banks to assure the SLFP’s victory in at least one instance. He
did so by mobilizing large segments of the Muslim vernacular intelligentsia around ideas
of Islamic Socialism. Forming the ‘Islamic Socialist Front’ (ISF), Mahmood successfully
mobilized a generation of educated Muslim youth, giving voice to Muslim opinion on
vital national issues for several years. Mahmood did this while in the opposition and
ensured the shift of a substantial Muslim vote from the United National Party (UNP) that
the Muslim trader elite was traditionally loyal to, to the SLFP. And after the SLFP
victory of 1972, when the constitution was redrafted and Sri Lanka declared a republic,
Mahmood organized a mammoth celebration of Muslims welcoming the government’s
initiative. This was the same constitution that did away with section 29 of the
independence constitution and was boycotted by the Tamil leadership. After the election
and another cabinet appointment for himself, Mahmood lost interest in the ISF. It had
served its purpose as far as he was concerned and there was no more use for it. The years
of mobilization and organizing on ideas of Islamic Socialism and Muslims’ political
place in Sri Lanka were to no avail. This was a cause of great resentment amongst a
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generation of the Muslim intelligentsia. ix Mahmood’s treatment of the ISF is indicative of
the anti democratic nature of the Muslim leaders’ engagement with the community they
claimed to represent.
Fareed and Mahmood, given their national stature, have become emblematic of Muslim
engagement with the state. However, the special circumstances of their prominence,
where Mahmood was important because of his place in the SLFP and his close ties with
the Bandaranaike family, and Fareed because of his stature as part of an elite
philanthropic family, did more than a little to influence their particular paths. This aspect
of Muslim politics, where Muslim political leaders held the communities captive has not
been adequately understood or appreciated by scholars of Muslim politics. These elisions
speak to the inadequacy of studies undertaken into Muslim politics in Sri Lanka. Very
significantly neither Fareed nor Mahmood were elected by the Muslims that they claimed
to speak on behalf of.
The much more pedestrian political careers of Kaleel, Aboosally, M.H.Mohamed and the
like, arguably are more typical of the place of Muslim political power within the state. x It
is a story of minimal personal clout and a dependence on good relations with the party
leadership and a politics that embraced the plural nature of the Sri Lankan polity. . xi ..
However, there was little overall gain in the sphere of Muslim political power. There
were few that could publicly speak on behalf of Muslims in government, and none who
could claim to represent a Muslim mandate during this time.
“Muslim” Politics in the Context of the Ethnic Conflict
The proportional representation system introduced with the new constitution in 1978 did
away with what little political power these MPs with their multiethnic constituencies had
consolidated. It brought about an era of the small ethnic parties. Thereafter any party that
initially could muster 12% of the vote of a district and later just 5% of that vote was
eligible to be considered for a seat from the district. xii Additionally, voters were called
upon to indicate their preference from the respective political parties’ list of names.
Therefore, nomination to the list from the party, and additionally, mustering preferential
votes from the entire district, was a challenge that individual politicians had to face and
therefore, the competition amongst individual MPs from the same district became rather
fierce. Those with erstwhile success, in selected areas, like Aboosally in Ratnapura,
speedily lost their seats. Political leaders argue that the proportional representation
system exacerbated ethnic tensions as politicians were compelled to appeal to a larger
constituency and win their preference by any means possible. xiii Ethnicity, then was the
most readily available platform on which to mobilize masses.
The Eastern province has traditionally been the home of Muslim and Tamil villages often
situated next to one another or of Muslim villages surrounded by Tamils. Historically,
according to local residents, Tamil Muslim coexistence in the Eastern province included
incidents of sporadic localized altercations between the two communities. These were
mainly specific to the neighbouring villages among whom they took place and would
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generally end within the course of the day due to the need for amicable interaction for
daily business. However in the mid to late 1980s the polarization between communities
became more marked with the involvement of outside elements.the Indian Peace Keeping
Force (IPKF), the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, and Tamil militants and later, Muslim
“home guards” armed by the state were all instrumental in manipulating ethnic
differences and exacerbating enmity between the two communities.
The Tamil Muslim Riots in Batticaloa in 1985 were allegedly orchestrated by the state in
a manner similar to the events of July 1983. xiv ,the 8 day siege of Kattankudi by the LTTE
in 1987, the IPKF bombing of Ottamavadi, the massacres of Muslim at prayer by the
LTTE in Kattankudi and Eravur (1990), the disappearance of the Haj pilgrims from
Kurukkal Madam the same year are all pivotal moments for Muslims in recounting their
victimization due to the conflict. Additionally inhabitants of 33 Muslim villages in the
Batticaloa district were displaced during the conflict. Most of these people moved to the
densely populated town of Kattankudi further swelling the population of that town. The
1990 expulsion of Muslim in the North by the LTTE and the resulting 16 year
displacement of the Northern Muslims have often been attributed, in discussions, to the
disturbances in the East. Certain small scale reprisal killings of Tamils by Muslims in the
aftermath of militant attacks have also been recorded. These were largely by Muslim
Home Guards with overt and cover support from the Special Task Force (STF). Later
these Home Guards were systematically hunted down and killed by the LTTE. Further,
Muslims in the East are accused of questionable land acquisitions and are perceived as
taking advantage of Tamil misfortune. Muslim purchasing of paddy land from Tamil
absentee landlords, buying up Tamil owned shops, the creeping spread of Muslim
villages into Tamil villages is part of the contemporary reality of the Eastern province.
Any illegality in this process is not yet established, however Tamil and specifically LTTE
resentment of this process has been recorded, xv and Muslims are seen to have indirectly
benefited from the depletion suffered by Tamil society. xvi
The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) emerged in the context of the escalation of the
conflict between the Sinhala state and Tamil militant groups, the exacerbation of ethnic
tensions in the Eastern Province and the state aided enmity between the Muslims and the
Tamils. In the 1980s the Muslim MPs in parliament struggled to articulate Muslim issues,
and given the polarization between the Tamil and Muslim communities in the East the
time was ripe for the emergence of a Muslim identified party representing Muslim
interests. Therefore, we see the emergence of the SLMC with a publicly stated Muslim
political agenda and a powerful base in Amparai and Batticaloa districts in the Eastern
Province.
While the SLMC under the leadership of its founder M.H.M Ashraff was successful in
giving voice to Muslim aspirations of the North and East, after his death the party has
been plagued with difficulties. For instance, there was a significant split in the party after
his death with his wife, Ferial Ashraff taking the leadership of the National Unity
Alliance that Ashraff had formulated before his death. Previously an umbrella body of
which the SLMC was a part, today the NUA functions as a Muslim led National party in
the Eastern Province. More recently, there have been further schisms in the party with M.
91

Athaullah, Rishard Bathiuddeen, and several others leaving to formulate their own
breakaway parties. Further, while the proportional representation system allows for
minority representation, and makes minority seats crucial for the formation of a majority
government, in practice there is much that is done to undermine minority strength. For
instance, the practice of MPs crossing over from the various parties is common. xvii
The national parties have no compunctions about ‘“acquiring” additional seats from the
minority parties by soliciting individual crossovers. And party representatives, especially
though not only from the Muslim parties, have been only too willing to be bought over.
While there are provisions for parties to go to courts to expel such MPs and thereby
deprive them of their seats, the courts have no history of granting judgments in favour of
the complaining parties. Therefore, the minority parties, especially the SLMC has seen
extremely damaging crossovers in the recent past that has challenged the party’s structure
and discipline, and also fuelled questions about Muslim political competence by the state
and the LTTE. And the SLMC’s reference to itself as the Sole Representative of the
Muslims of the North and East has failed to impress either the breakaway factions or the
larger Muslim community. xviii
The SLMC’s failure to hold the party together has been attributed to Rauf Hakeem’s
reportedly authoritarian leadership style. Additionally the Northern Muslim position as
understood by the SLMC has been critiqued by many Northern Muslims who
experienced the expulsion. The SLMC position on a solution to the ethnic conflict has
long been Eastern Province centric and based on Tamil Muslim enmity, and a non
contiguous administrative area based mostly on the South East. Such an arrangement,
does not address the specific concerns of the Northern Muslims expelled by the LTTE in
1990. The Northern Muslims do not consider the Tamil people as a whole to be their
enemies and hold only the LTTE responsible. In the East the distinction is not that clear.
Fruther, given the fact that the Muslims of the northern province are only 5% of the
population and live dispersed in small communities through out the province with only
one significant area of concentration in Musali in Mannar, such highly ethnicised
solutions will not be able to guarantee Muslim safety and security. They understand that
it is a pattern of coexistence that will be beneficial to them. xix
Further complicating the emergence of an autonomous and unified Muslim politics, is the
fact that only 30% of the Muslim population of the country is from the North and East.
The larger number of Muslims that reside outside the North and East see no real need for
a Muslim political voice outside of the Eastern Province. Southern Muslim politicians, in
particular, resent the SLMC’s attempts to reformulate itself as a national party. They
continue to practice the system of resting their trust on their allegiance to the leadership
of the national parties and do not necessarily support the SLMC’s call for separate
Muslim representation at the peace negotiations.
Today, the SLMC, together with its breakaway factions are struggling to assert their
claim to articulate Muslim political needs. They compete fiercely amongst one another
and their personal enmities are strong while there is little discernable difference on issues.
92

Unfortunately their factionalism plays into the hands of the state and the LTTE’s long
entrenched stereotyping of the Muslims as being in political disarray.
As many have argued, and I have illustrated elsewhere, xx historically Sri Lanka does not
have a culture of recognizing minority rights. The Sinhala state, supported by certain
Muslim political actors from the south, and in keeping with a long history of Muslim
political absence considers it presumptuous of Muslims to claim a seat at the negotiating
table. They are called upon to trust the state to look after their interests. But the state has
no history of doing so.
Additionally, Tamil nationalism has a particular place for Muslims in its narrative of
emergence. Sri Lankan Muslims are largely Tamil speaking and Tamil nationalists
generally see Muslims as fellow ethnics that refused their ‘Tamilness’ for narrow
political ends. xxi They see Muslims as traitors to the Tamil cause. For Muslims, militant
Tamil nationalism has meant a constant threat of violence in the East, an undermining of
their livelihood activities and steadily deteriorating relations with neighboring Tamil
communities. Muslims consider the oft brought out concept of the ‘Tamil speaking
peoples’ a ruse by which Tamil nationalists have tried to benefit from the advantage of
Muslim numbers. However, Tamil nationalism has had little real interest in incorporating
Muslim representation or in addressing Muslim specific concerns. The LTTE’s act of
ethnic cleansing – the group systematically expelled all Muslims from the Northern
Province in October 1990—forever sealed the enmity, as far as the Muslims were
concerned, between them and the Tamil speaking Tamil people.
In 2004 the Peace Secretariat for Muslims (PSM) was formulated on the basis of a
Memorandum of Understanding between the SLMC and the National Unity Alliance. Its
role was to build a consensus between the various political and civil society actors within
the community and to provide an institutional base from which the Muslim position or
positions could be articulated. Although created with massive donor support the success
of the PSM within the community itself was negligible. More than four years after its
establishment, the institution remained a body run mainly by the SLMC and the NUA. It
has concentrated its energies on developing regional linkages and the ability to provide
technical support to Muslim delegations traveling abroad. The institution struggles to
maintain its legitimacy among the community. .
The Situation Today
The Rajapaksa regime gambled on bringing about its victory through an appeal to the
ethnic Sinhala majority. The combined minority vote of the Muslims and Tamil
communities should have guaranteed a victory for UNP (United National Party) and its
candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe, who was perceived to be pro peace and pro federalist.
Instead, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, came to power in November 2005 in an election
which the LTTE compelled Tamil citizens of the North and East to boycott. The
victorious coalition included a party of Buddhist Monks (JHU) and the ostensibly left
leaning but Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The coalition also
included the traditional Sri Lankan left, long time allies of the SLFP. Some progressive
93

forces hoped that the Rajapaksa regime would usher peace with justice, that the UNP had
not been successful in doing.
Since the presidential elections of November 2005 the country has experienced a drastic
turnaround as the new regime adopted a distinct orientation towards resolving the conflict
through military means. Public support for a negotiated settlement declined and there was
a steady deterioration in the institutions of governance and law and order. Whereas, all
regimes in power since 1994, had publicly accepted that Tamil grievances were
legitimate, and that power sharing under a federalist mode was to be the solution to the
conflict, the Rajapaksa regime successfully projected the conflict not as an ethnic
conflict but as a terrorist problem to be dealt with in the style of the US led “War on
Terror.” Earlier, these sentiments had been publicly expressed by the JVP and the JHU.
However, what were considered fringe ideas by progressive forces in the country were
rendered mainstream by the Rajapaksa regime. Moreover, support for the war went hand
in hand with strong anti minority sentiments that justified the targeting of all Tamils as
possible terrorists and marginalized other minorities like the Muslims in the economic
and political sphere.
The ceasefire was abrogated in January 2008. The escalation of the war meant the
escalation of human rights abuses and impunity as has been evident in intense conflict
situations throughout Sri Lanka’s post colonial history. The current Sri Lankan regime
conducts itself in violation of all international human rights norms in the name of fighting
terrorism. It pays lip service to the need to deal with the political dimension of the
problem, but its treatment of the All Party Representatives Committee, convened to
formulate proposals for a political solution, has rendered that process false. After nearly
two years of deliberations the APRC produced a disappointing two page document
recommending the ‘proper implementation’ of the 13 th amendment.
The 13 th amendment to the constitution brought into force in the aftermath of the Indo-
Lanka accord of 1987, has long been considered an unsuccessful attempt at the
devolution of power with the centre maintaining its control despite the creation of a
provincial administrative structure. In the process of devolution certain powers were put
on a concurrent list with the center reserving the right to intervene. Many see it as an
added burden on the state finances with little real benefit to the people. The resurfacing of
the minimalist 13 th amendment is an insult to Tamil nationalist thinking. Thirteenth
Amendment. Under the current regime, it remains the only permitted discussion option
on power sharing.
The defense secretary and powerful members of the government coalition maintain that
the problem is a terrorist problem and not a political problem. The war has been fought
with little regard to human rights norms, and the law and order situation has steadily
deteriorated in keeping with the systematic terror tactics adopted by the state. In the
deeply entrenched culture of impunity for human rights violations in Sri lanka, the
minorities have become even more vulnerable targets.
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Minority rights have no purchase with the Rajapaksa regime. Many of those powerful in
the regime have gone on record making anti minority sentiments. Army Commander
Sarath Fonseka has stated openly that “ the country belongs to the Sinhalese” xxii and
minorities should know their place. Champaka Ranawaka, member of the JHU and a
powerful cabinet minister has called all those other than the Sinhalese “visitors” to the
country. xxiii The Military and the JHU are enormously powerful within the current regime
Eastern Province ‘Liberated’
In early 2008 the government entered into a military operation in the Eastern Province,
took over the previously LTTE controlled area of Vakarai and declared a military victory
in the Eastern Province. The process itself was more a publicity stunt than a victory,
Batticaloa residents claim that there was no significant LTTE military presence in the
Vakarai area, that the government forces fired over people’s homes, schools and markets,
displacing thousands. Having “liberated” the Eastern Province, local government
elections were held. xxiv The United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), the governing
coalition in an alliance with the TMVP won the Eastern Provincial Council elections and
the leader of the Provincial Council is currently the head of the TMVP, a former LTTE
cadre and child soldier Pillayan or Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan as he is known today.
The Muslim parties too won a considerable amount of seats in the provincial council
elections. The government had struck parallel deals with the TMVP and the Muslim
parties with the promise of the chief minister position for the winner. Although the
Muslim parties claim to have won the largest number of seats the government gave the
position to Pillayan and placated the Muslim Hisbullah with the position of provincial
health minister. The state has also demarcated certain sections of the newly liberated area
as high security zones and resettled people in areas different from those from which they
fled. The government currently has plans for economic development zones for those
areas. The government is also engaged in massive infra structure development projects in
the region. The region remains unstable with ethnic tensions mounting and killings taking
place on a daily basis.
Muslim community leaders that were interviewed recently claimed that there is a JHU
driven campaign to undermine Muslims’ economic activity in Colombo and the
government has openly set in motion the Sinhalisation process of the East. Under such a
dispensation basing one’s arguments on human rights norms and calling for preservation
of minority rights have no hopes of success.
The SLMC under the current regime has consistently aligned itself with the UNP (other
than for a brief period where it joined the government allegedly under pressure from
Presidential sibling and advisor Basil Rajapaksa.) The party left the government to vote
with the UNP during the budget debate of 2007, and seems to be placing its bets on an
election victory for the UNP. However, the UNP itself is in disarray and any such victory
will require some serious reform of its own internal problems. For the Eastern Province
elections the SLMC had three of its members resign their parliament seats and contest as
UNP candidates. Rauf Hakeem, leader of the SLMC was the UNP candidate for the Chief
minister position. Unfortunately the UNP did not make an adequate showing. The UNP
95

won 15 seats while the UPFA won 18. The UNP also won a greater number of seats in
the Trincomalee district where Rauf Hakeem won the largest number of preferential
votes. xxv Ofcourse the election itself was considered highly flawed, but the fact remains
that the SLMC’s gamble again failed to pay off. However, the SLMC has consistently
maintained its position as a UNP ally.
The All Ceylon Muslim Congress that currently consists of a section of powerful Muslim
MPs outside of the SLMC and the NUA is close to the regime and seems willing to
support the regime for certain compromised gains for the Muslim community. Both
Risharth Bathiyuddeen and Hisbulla are members of the party and maintain good
relations with the regime. While they seem to be working with a strategy of engagement
different from the SLMC’s position of opposition, the political gains from such an
engagement are still to be seen.
Muslims then, remain caught within a state system that has historically done little to grant
them legitimate political rights, but instead, has encouraged an economy of collusion; and
an anti state movement that holds them culpable for just such a collusion and has
systematically perpetrated acts of violence against them. Today Muslim political parties
continue to struggle against a system loaded against minority political representation or
minority political power in general. Muslims therefore have much to gain in any
reorganization of the state in the aftermath of the conflict. Muslim political
representatives have much to do in any lead up to such a reorganization of the state.
Bibliography
Ali, A. 1986. Politics of Survival: Past Strategies and Present Predicament of the Muslim
Community in Sri Lanka. Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 7:147-170.
Haniffa, F. 2005. P-TOMS or The Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure: a
wakeup call to the Muslim Leadership. Lines 4.
Haniffa, F. F. 2007. In Search of an Ethical Self in a Beleagured Context: Middle Class
Muslims in Contemporary Sri Lanka, Columbia University.
Ismail, Q. 1995. "Unmooring Identity: The Antinomies of Muslim Self Representation,"
in Unmaking the Nation. Edited by P.Jeganathan and Q. Ismail. Colombo: Social
Scientists' Association.Mahroof, M. M. 1990. Muslims in Sri Lanka: the Long Road to
Accomodation. Journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 11:88-99.
McGilvray, Dennis and Mirak Raheem. 2007. Muslim Perspectives on the Sri Lankan
Conflict. Policy Studies 41. East-West Center, Washington.
96

Saminathan, D. 2005. "Tamil Perspectives from the East," in Dealing with Diversity: Sri
Lankan Discourses on Peace and Conflict. Edited by G. Frerks and B. Klem, pp. 113-
129. The Hague: Clingendael Institute.
i While the debate on whether the British, or the two other colonial powers that were in Sri Lanka prior to
the British, created the ethnic/racial/religious categorizations through their structures of governmentality,
still remains to be resolved, the fact remains that differences of various sorts were potentially ripe for
political exploitation at the time of independence.
ii Jayadeva Uyangoda (2001), Questions of Sri Lanka’s Minority Rights, Colombo, International Centre for
Ethnic Studies, p29
iii Ibid.
iv Section 29(2) (b) and (c) of the Soulbury Constitution provided that no law enacted by Parliament could
(b) make persons of any community or religion liable to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of other
communities or religions are not made liable; or (c) confer on persons of any community or religion any
privilege or advantage which is not conferred on persons of other communities or religions.
v K M De Silva, (1998) Reaping the Whirlwind: Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Politics in Sri Lanka, New Delhi,
Penguin
vi Muslims, a largely Tamil speaking community in Sri Lanka have long resisted the Tamil ethnic label.
The origins of the resistance can be traced to British colonial machinations regarding native representation.
The British decision to create a Muslim seat in the Legislative Council effectively institutionalized Tamil
Muslim difference in the country.
vii The writers who have attempted an engagement, but have reproduced the same categories of Muslim
collusion without attempting an alternative reading however are many. For the most sustained engagements
on the subject see
Ali, A. 1986. Politics of Survival: Past Strategies and Present Predicament of the Muslim Community in Sri
Lanka. Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 7:147-170.,
Mahroof, M. M. 1990. Muslims in Sri Lanka: the Long Road to Accomodation. Journal Institute of Muslim
Minority Affairs 11:88-99.,and
Ismail, Q. 1995. "Unmooring Identity: The Antinomies of Muslim Self Representation," in Unmaking the
Nation. Edited by P.Jeganathan and Q. Ismail. Colombo: Social Scientists' Association.
viii See K.M. de Silva. Also, based on author’s interview with M.L.M Aboosally in May 2005, shortly
before his death in December that year.
ix For a longer discussion of Mahmood, see my dissertation chapter Minority Politics in
Haniffa, F. F. 2007. In Search of an Ethical Self in a Beleagured Context: Middle Class Muslims in
Contemporary Sri Lanka, Columbia University.
x A.C.S. Hameed, as foreign minister and diplomat, and stalwart of the UNP was a powerful minister in his
time but quantifying his power as of particular benefit to Muslims is rather difficult. He is remembered for
his skilled diplomacy outside the country, in connection with the LTTE as well as with regards to keeping
the UNP together during difficult times.
xi The post of Foreign Minister was held by A.C.S Hameed, during the middle east oil boom and influenced
their consequent generosity with development aid.
xii In fact, members of the SLMC believe that it was Ashraff who persuaded President Premadasa to revise
the requirement of 12% of votes to 5%.
xiii Aboosally, a long standing MP for Balangoda, lost his seat when the constituency became the whole of
the Ratnapura district.
xiv See Rajan Hoole
xv Haniffa, F. 2005. P-TOMS or The Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure: a wakeup call to the
Muslim Leadership. Lines 4.
xvi Saminathan, D. 2005. "Tamil Perspectives from the East," in Dealing with Diversity: Sri Lankan
Discourses on Peace and Conflict. Edited by G. Frerks and B. Klem, pp. 113-129. The Hague: Clingendael
Institute.
97

xvii After the general elections of 2004,where the SLMC aligned with the losing national party, the UNP, it
was compelled to sit in the opposition. It prompted several of its members to cross over to the UPFA or the
ruling coalition.
xviii See the SLMC document “Resolution to the Conflict in the Northern and Eastern Province: The Muslim
Dimension (no date). P6.
xix In the current political context the SLMC position regarding the Northern Muslims has shifted to an
extent and the party seems willing to consider the specific concerns of Northern Muslims. The Peace
Secretariat for Muslims, constituted upon an MOU between the SLMC and the National Unity Alliance
recently conducted consultations regarding the specific concerns of the displaced Northern Muslim
population in Puttalam. Also, Risharth Bathiyutheen, a Northern Muslims, has been recently appointed the
leader of the All Ceylon Muslim Congress a party constituted of former members of the SLMC. And if the
SLMC is to remain legitimate among Northern Muslims, the party needs to address the specific concerns of
the community.
xx Haniffa, F. Human Rights and the Muslim Minority: Some Reflections. www.lines-magazine.org. August
2005.
xxi The British institutionalized Muslim Tamil difference through creating both a Tamil seat and later a
Muslim seat in the Legislative Council. The Tamil member protested, saying that the Muslims, as ethnic
Tamils did not need additional representation, Muslims on the other hand vociferously argued against this
position claiming descent from Arabs and a separate ethnic history.
xxii See Izeth Hussein “ Sarath Fonseka’s statement reeks of Sinhala Trumphalism”
http://transcurrents.com/tc/2008/11/post_76.html
xxiii The statement was made on a TV talk show as well as in an interview “Hard Talk” in the Daily Mirror
of October 16 th 2008. Further JHU spokesperson when contacted for comment reiterated the position and
called it historical fact and saw no problems with the statement. Infact it reflects what the local history
books teach Sinhala medium students about minorities. See
http://www.lankadissent.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2312:muslims-agitateagainst-minister-ranawaka&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=50
xxiv The election itself, endorsed by foreign election monitors was considered by many local groups as
flawed, and as conducted under conditions of millitarisation among a terrorised populaton,
xxv Eastern Provincial Council Election Results. Accessed from Lankapuvath news agency at
http://www.lankapuvath.lk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=842&Itemid=89
98

Sri Lanka: Recent Shifts in the Minority Rights Debate
Jayadeva Uyangoda
Introduction
This paper surveys some key shifts in recent debates and politics on minority rights in Sri
Lanka. The basic argument of the paper is that the ethnic conflict has provided a context
as well as an impetus for the re-articulation of the minority rights discourse in Sri Lanka.
It first brought the idea of group rights to the centre of political struggles, waged by the
minority communities. The group rights claim made by the North-Eastern Tamils has
precipitated similar assertion of rights among other minorities, Muslims and Upcountry
Tamils. The ethnic conflict has also produced a minor paradox. Despite the shift towards
greater salience of group rights, the liberal constitutionalist and human rights discourses
continue to define the terms of the mainstream approaches to minority of rights, viewing
group rights claims by minorities with both suspicion and hostility. Then, the
consequences of the ethno-political civil war, as this paper shows, have paradoxically led
to the undermining of the legitimacy of a key group rights claim, the self-determination
right as asserted by militant Tamil nationalists. Thus the impact of the ethnic conflict, the
civil war and the failed peace processes is crucial to the understanding of Sri Lanka’s
minority rights debates and the politics of minority rights. This paper examines these
processes in relation to the three main ‘minority’ communities in Sri Lanka – Tamils in
the Northern and Eastern provinces, Muslims and Tamils of ‘recent Indian origin’
It needs to be noted at the outset that the concept ‘minority’ is somewhat contested in Sri
Lanka. Politically conscious Tamils of the Northern and Eastern provinces would not
view their community as a minority, but as a ‘nation’ or at least a ‘nationality.’ They
would consider themselves being described as members of a ‘minority’ as politically
offensive and unacceptable because it immediately places the Tamil community in a
structure of hierarchy in relation to the ‘majority’ community of the Sinhalese. This
conceptual disjuncture emanates from the specific experience of majority-minority
politics in the post-colonial Sri Lanka in which the political class of the majority
community had claimed and maintained a hegemonic control of state power.
In fact, post-colonial Sinhalese nationalism does not have a concept of inter-group
equality. It bases itself on the ontology of inequality. It means that in the understanding
of Sinhalese nationalism, the liberal notion of equality in practice favours religious and
ethnic minorities who are supposed to have been ‘privileged’ over the majority
community during the colonial rule. i Meanwhile, the ‘minority’ communities consider
their being classified as minorities as a discriminatory and disabling practice. This
context is further characterised by the absence in Sri Lanka’s public policy or
constitutional scheme of arrangements for affirmative action for ethnic or social
minorities. Quite intriguingly, even after twenty five years of an ethnic- separatist civil
war, Sri Lanka does not yet have equal opportunity legislation. The one attempt made for
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an equal opportunity law in 1996-1997, had to be abandoned by the government in the
face of resistance by the Sinhalese nationalist groups. The argument put forward by them
was that equal opportunity legislation would have favoured the ethnic and religious
minorities while being discriminatory against the majority Sinhalese-Buddhist
community. Thus, in the public discourse as well as the political practice, ‘minority’ has
not been a neutral analytical or descriptive concept. It is a category that has legitimised
group discrimination and in turn evoked resistance.
The Context
Sri Lanka’s post-colonial political structure has had a distinctly ‘ethnic’ character. The
framework of governance shaped according to conventional parliamentary democracy
has enabled one community that is in numerical majority, to acquire and maintain a near
exclusive monopoly over state power. This is a classic example of ‘majoritarian
democracy’ in both theory and practice. It has produced a civil war at the heart of which
is the question of sharing state power between the majority ethnic community and the
other ethnic communities. In the period preceding the war, Tamil politics was shaped by
what was viewed at the time as ‘minority grievances’, which included discrimination in
the areas of language rights, access to land and public resources and access to structures
of governance. The war that began in early 1980s progressed under new conceptual
foundations of the Tamil political project, making a decisive shift from a framework of
‘minority grievances’ to a paradigm of ‘national aspirations.’ This transition of Tamil
politics in relation to the Sri Lankan state, has re-located majority-minority politics in Sri
Lanka in a process of state formation in a period of civil war. The prolonged civil war
with its devastating political, human and social consequences has brought forward new
issues concerning minority rights. The original issues that defined the grievances
discourse of minority politics are now displaced by the dynamics of a protracted civil
war. Among the issues that have dominated the politics of Tamil minority rights during
the past two and half decades have been the question of national self-determination, the
strategies to end the civil war, the nature of the post-civil state, and the choice between
regional autonomy and secession.
Nevertheless, Sri Lanka’s mainstream constitutionalist perspective on minority rights
continues with some reluctance to change. It revolves around two approaches. The first is
the idea that the constitutional entrenchment of the fundamental rights of all citizens,
while guaranteeing the language rights of the main ethnic minorities, would be adequate
to address minority grievances. The second approach accommodates to a limited degree
the claims of group rights of the ethnic minorities. It accepts devolution of power as a
political measure necessary to meet the Tamil and Muslim demand for regional
autonomy. The ethnic conflict has exposed the inadequacy of both these approaches to
grapple with the new issues of minority rights that have emerged in the backdrop of a
protracted internal war.
With regard to the first perspective, Sri Lanka’s Constitution has a chapter on
fundamental rights with a non-discrimination clause. It claims to ensure that “no citizen
shall be discriminated against on the grounds of race, religion, language, caste, sex,
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political opinion, place of birth or any one of such grounds.” ii The 1978 Constitution also
has fairly liberal provisions for minority language rights. While Sinhalese, the language
of the majority, is the “Official Language of Sri Lanka,” Sinhalese and Tamil are
“National Languages.” iii Any person is also entitled to be educated through the medium
of either of the national languages, subjected to a few procedural restrictions. Despite
these constitutional guarantees, citizens belonging to the minority communities seem not
to seek judicial redress for repeated rights violations that would come under the nondiscrimination
clause as well as the language rights provisions. There are two reasons that
explain this situation. First, it is exceedingly difficult to prove before a court of law the
legal requirement of the intent of discrimination on the basis of race, religion or language.
Secondly, Sri Lanka’s higher judiciary does not have a strong record of protecting
minority rights.
There is also enabling legislation to give effect to the constitutional provisions on
language rights. An Official Languages Commission was set up in 1991 to provide
institutional support for the proper and effective implementation of the language
legislation. However, experience so far suggests that mere constitutionalization of
language rights is not sufficient to honour and protect minority rights. Studies on the
implementation of Tamil language provisions show that most of the government
departments, which are run primarily by Sinhalese officials at all levels of responsibility,
do not have resources, personnel or the commitment to transact in the Tamil language
with Tamil or Muslim citizens. Meanwhile, the Official Languages Commission has little
or no authority to enforce the official languages law, except making recommendations to
the government. Even when recommendations are made, the governments have taken
little or no action to acknowledge and implement them. iv As Shanmugaratnam has
pointed out, at the heart of this inability of governments to give effect to the official
languages law is the majoritarian communal character of the post-colonial Sri Lankan
state. De-communalisation of the state is an essential precondition for the protection of
minority rights through legislation.
The approach of accommodating minority demands for political rights through the
devolution of power has a record of disappointing outcomes that has had grave
implications. The devolution process that began in 1987 initially was meant to provide a
framework of regional autonomy to the Tamil community, amidst a secessionist war
carried out by a host of militant Tamil nationalist groups. Later, Muslim claims for
autonomy were also incorporated into the devolution discourse. Provincial Councils for
devolution, as opposed to decentralization of power, were the first institutional
framework which the Sinhalese ruling elites established in response to the selfdetermination
claims of the Tamil minority. Two previous attempts made in 1957 and
1966 to institutionalise Tamil demand for regional autonomy had failed in the face of
Sinhalese nationalist opposition.
Meanwhile, the devolution of power established in 1987 through the 13 th Amendment to
the Constitution has not worked in the Northern and Eastern provinces where it was
needed most. The crippling of devolution there occurred as a result of the dissolution by
the central government of the elected Provincial Council in 1990, when the provincial
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administration headed by the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Front (EPRLF) declared
unilateral independence. v That prompted the central government to run the provincial
administration through a Governor who was appointed by the President. However, recent
changes in the military balance in the Eastern Province have given rise to a new
development concerning the provincial council. After the government under President
Mahinda Reajapakse managed to push the LTTE out of the Eastern Province in 2007, the
election to the Eastern Provincial Council was held. The Supreme Court decision in 2006
to de-merge the two provinces has been in the backdrop of these new developments. At
the provincial council election, the Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP), a
breakaway faction of the LTTE, won the majority. The TMVP’s victory was made
possible by its alliance with the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), the national
ruling coalition headed by President Rajapakse. Against the backdrop of continuing civil
war, the deep divisions within the Tamil polity and the continuing refusal by the LTTE to
reach an autonomy arrangement with governments in Colombo have provided an
opportunity for the Mahinda Rajapakse administration to alter the parameters within
which a political solution to the ethnic conflict could be worked out. This development
will be discussed in some detail later in this chapter.
The point that needs to be made against this background is the following - Sri Lanka’s
ethnic conflict has brought the possibility and the necessity of group rights to the centre
of the political struggle, although minority rights are not usually understood in a language
of group rights. Meanwhile, many of the group rights issues that emerged through the
protracted ethnic conflict call for an approach that can grapple with the self-determination
rights of ethnic minorities. They include representation rights, security rights, recognition
rights, development rights and governance rights. vi These rights are in turn linked to the
question of how state power is shared among different ethnic communities and how the
state in its structural composition should reflect the ethnic diversity of the polity.
In this context, an important question that warrants exploration is: what has the civil war
done to the theory and practice of minority rights in Sri Lanka? It has significantly altered
the form and content of minority rights. It has indeed brought into a collision course the
liberal and nationalist perspectives on minority rights. The liberal constitutionalist
approach believes in the efficacy of legal reforms and institution building to ensure
minority rights. ‘Minority nationalists’ on the other hand, seek either secession or the
radical re-structuring of the state in a federalist framework. The framing of minority
rights can no longer be made on the plane of individual rights or in relation to civil and
political rights and language alone. It calls for a group rights discourse. However, the
ethnic minority’s advocacy of prioritising group rights has posed a radical challenge to
the mainstream liberal constitutionalist discourse in Sri Lanka. This challenge revolves
around the position that the entrenchment of group rights through regional autonomy
would place at great risk individual civil and political rights within the community. The
war has reinforced the argument that the group rights approach to minority rights might
lead to illiberal consequences. At the same time, advocates of group rights argue that
giving priority to individual rights over the self-determination claims of minority
communities is a continuation of ethnic majoritarian politics by other means, that is,
behind the veil of human rights. vii
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The civil war has also brought to the political agenda the nature of Sri Lanka’s postconflict
state and its capacity to accommodate minority aspirations for political equality.
The Tamil nationalists, particularly those who share the thesis that Tamils constitute a
nation in Sri Lanka, envisage re-constitution of the existing state enabling Tamils to
enjoy an extensive measure of territorial autonomy. Paralleled with the Tamil nationalist
vision for a post-civil war state is the Muslim vision. The political leaders of the Muslim
minority have articulated the idea that a post-civil war state should be conceptualized to
accommodate regional autonomy to the Muslim community in the Eastern province.
What is noteworthy is that during the attempts at a negotiated settlement to the civil war,
an argument for extensive state reforms has emerged from the minority communities.
However, in the Sinhalese society, the idea of state reform to accompany a civil war
settlement process continues to remain intensely contested. There seems to be three
clusters of approaches on this issue in the Sinhalese society – no state reform at all, state
reform through expanded devolution and limited, pragmatic reforms.
Tamils and the claim to ‘Nationhood’
The most dramatic shift in Sri Lanka’s minority rights discourse is linked to the rise of
Tamil ethnic nationalism that claimed that the Tamil community was not a ‘minority’, but
a ‘nation’ with the right to self-determination. Since the Tamil nationalists have always
defined the rights of the Tamils in a framework of self-determination, the liberal
constitutionalist discourse of minority rights could not for many years engage with this
particular conceptualisation of rights. But it had recognised the ‘collective rights’ of
minorities in the form of the right to non-discrimination. viii The Soulbury constitution of
1947, drafted mainly by the advisors of the outgoing British colonial state, contained a
crucial provision that prohibited the Sri Lankan parliament from enacting discriminatory
legislation. ix However, the socialist-nationalist constitutionalism that came to prominence
in the 1960s and 1970s radically disagreed with the liberal constitutionalist perspective of
minority rights as collective rights. Thus the 1972 Constitution removed the collective
rights clauses of the Soulbury Constitution and subjected minority rights entirely to the
will of the legislature, the majority of which were under all circumstances, members of
the ethnic majority.
Meanwhile, the notion of self-determination, as politically constructed in Tamil
nationalism, has had both ‘internal’ and ‘external’ claims. The political goal of ‘internal
self-determination’ has been posited as regional autonomy. The Federal Party’s federalist
idea, articulated as far back as the early 1950s, was based on this notion of ‘internal selfdetermination’,
although the literature of the Federal Party did not exactly carry the
formulation in these terms. The formulation used was then the right to ‘nationhood.’
Interestingly, secession had not entered the political imagination of Tamil nationalists in
the early phases of post-colonial state formation in Sri Lanka.
The re-framing of self-determination in ‘external’, or secessionist terms occurred in the
late 1970s. And in the early 1980s, it entered the political practice of Tamil nationalism
in a serious way in the form of an armed insurgency. The argument of secessionist Tamil
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nationalism was that the nationhood goal of the Tamil ‘nation’, which has been reduced
to the status of a ‘minority’ in Sri Lanka’s post-colonial political order, could be achieved
only through a project of separate ‘statehood.’ This was quite different from the presecessionist
Tamil nationalist project of ‘nationhood.’ The latter was based on the idea
that the ‘nationhood’ goal of the Tamil minority could best be achieved within a reformed
and federalized state of Sri Lanka. While the nationhood goal envisioned a future of ‘two
nations –one state’, the statehood goal posited a vision of ‘two nations-two states.’
Indeed, the Tamil nationalist struggle for separate statehood through secession
constituted a qualitatively new dimension in the political practice of a minority to secure
group rights. But, the politics of secession, particularly of armed struggle, only further
complicated the minority rights campaign of the Sri Lankan Tamils. The protracted civil
war that began in 1983 brought forward some new dynamics that even put into doubt the
validity of secession as a credible path to group rights with democracy. The emergence of
militarized and thoroughly authoritarian rebel movements and their eventual dominance
weakened the Tamil nationalist project for democratic rights. Since the armed struggle,
understood in the language of ‘national liberation’, gave primacy to self-determination
rights over civil and political rights, the protracted ‘liberation struggle’ has turned itself
into an intensely militarised phase of state formation of the Tamil polity. One of its key
features is the exceptionally high level of internal militarization of political and social
relations that has allowed virtually no space for democratic struggles within.
The problematic consequences of according primacy to self-determination rights became
manifest when the LTTE, the main Tamil nationalist insurgent movement, began to
control territory and administer civilian populations. From the mid-1990s, the LTTE set
up institutions and structures of a ‘parallel state’ in areas under its control in the Northern
and Eastern provinces. These institutions included the police, the judiciary, social
services, education, civil administration, management of humanitarian assistance, and the
LTTE’s military institutions. While setting up these institutions, the LTTE also engaged
in war with the Sri Lankan state. The process has produced a highly militarised system of
a sub-national state in a part of Sri Lanka. Combined with the LTTE’s authoritarian
politics, this militarised sub-national state precluded internal democracy within the Tamil
polity. It did not provided space for representation, political pluralism, dissent, or civil
and political rights. This situation enabled the Sri Lankan state, run by the Sinhalese
political class, to claim that democratic and minority rights are better guaranteed and
practiced by the Sri Lankan state from which the LTTE is seeking secession. It has
reinforced the conventional liberal constitutionalist argument that self-determination
claims by minorities are not necessarily emancipatory projects.
The LTTE is not the only Tamil nationalist entity that has brought into sharp focus the
limits of the self-determination project of Tamil nationalism in terms of democratic
rights. In the course of their armed struggle, all Tamil militant groups have been using
excessive violence against the civilians, including Tamil civilians whom they claimed to
be liberating from the Sri Lankan state. The primacy accorded to the armed struggle has
to a great extent prevented any broadening of the debate on political emancipation within
the Tamil polity. As the experience of the EPRLF-run provincial council administration
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in 1989-1990 demonstrated, even the non-LTTE Tamil nationalist groups had not thought
of including democratic rights in their governing practices. While, non-LTTE Tamil
groups have been sharply questioning and opposing the LTTE’s authoritarian politics as
‘fascistic’, they have failed to provide a democratic alternative to the LTTE’s
authoritarianism. They have initiated no discussion in the Tamil polity for a critical reexamination
of the possibilities as well as the limits of the secessionist armed struggle to
ensure democratic rights of the Tamil people. Those ex-militant groups who have given
up armed struggle and joined parliamentary politics are not known for being standard
bearers of human rights and democracy in the Tamil polity.
Moreover, in their continuing internal war with the LTTE they have often allied
themselves with the state armed forces and intelligence agencies to hunt down even
Tamil civilians linked to the LTTE. The record of violence of the Karuna group, which
emerged in 2004 as a breakaway faction of the LTTE, illustrates this fundamental
paradox in Tamil politics in Sri Lanka. Karuna and his followers in the Eastern province
have joined hands with the state armed forces in the latter’s low-intensity war with the
LTTE. The Karuna group has been directing its violence and brutality almost exclusively
against Tamils. The Tamil nationalist practice of militarised violence and
authoritarianism within the Tamil polity gives credence to the ‘deficiency thesis’ of
liberal constitutionalism concerning minority rights, which posits that “ethnic groups are
deficient as rightholders.” x
The extreme polarization of Tamil politico-military groups into two camps – LTTE and
anti-LTTE – and their fratricidal internal war has been detrimental to the realization of
the Tamil community’s democratic rights. This has led to an unusual paradox: the
democratic rights of the Tamil people as a ‘minority’ needs to be protected not only from
the majoritarian Sinhalese state, but also from the Tamil politico-military groups who
using violence, control the everyday life of Tamil citizens. This contradiction in Tamil
‘national liberation politics’ was highlighted in the aftermath of the 2002 Cease-Fire
Agreement, in the war between the mainstream LTTE and the breakaway Karuna group.
It was possible for the state and the Tamil polity to de-escalate war and violence through
mutual agreement; but the moment that happened, the Tamil polity turned the violence
against itself.
What does all this tell us about the political project of minority rights? It tells us that
those who wage an armed struggle to secure minority rights are not the best guarantors of
democratic rights. Protracted armed struggle has not been a path paved with democracy
or human rights. In waging war for national rights, its practitioners have begun to
instrumentalise the entire rights discourse. Claims like, “it is too early to practice
democracy within ourselves; we must first win national independence,” however
outrageous they may appear to the politically conscious citizen, are informed by an
essentially nationalist as well as an instrumentalist reasoning concerning rights.
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Rights Claims in Muslim Politics
Muslims are Sri Lanka’s second largest minority community with a little over 8 percent
of the total population. They are concentrated in the Eastern province and dispersed
throughout the country. During the first three decades after independence, the rights
claims of the Muslim community were not as assertive or radicalised as those of the
Tamil community. Till the mid-1980s, Sri Lankan Muslims did not have a political party
of their own. In this early period, the Muslim political leadership came primarily from the
business and professional elite in the Western province and worked with the main
Sinhalese political parties. This Sinhalese-Muslim ‘alliance’ ensured parliamentary
representation and cabinet positions for elite Muslim politicians who were members of
either the United National Party or the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Meanwhile, Muslim
communities in the Northern and Eastern provinces voted for Tamil parties in a context
where ethnic identity politics had not polarized Tamil-Muslim social formations.
In the early phase of mobilization, Tamil nationalists took for granted that the Tamil
movement represented Muslim interests as well. The formulation, ‘Tamil-speaking
people in Sri Lanka’ had been deployed in the Tamil nationalist discourse to include both
Tamil and Muslim communities on the premise that both communities shared the same
language, Tamil. In the absence of a separate Muslim political party, the Muslim
community advanced their interests through Sinhalese and Tamil political parties. In the
Northern and Eastern provinces, where the Muslim community lived side by side with the
regional majority of the Tamil community, the Federal Party, which later became the
TULF, attracted Muslim voters as well as Muslim political activists. The ethnic war
radically altered this political co-existence between the two communities.
Three factors seem to have contributed to the Tamil-Muslim competition and conflict in
the mid and late 1980s. The first was the use of violence by Tamil armed groups against
Muslim civilians, particularly in the Eastern province, in the early phase of the armed
struggle. The second was the deliberate policy of Sinhalese political leaders to create
deep divisions between the Tamil and Muslim communities in their strategy of ‘divide
and rule’ in the Eastern province. xi The third was the intense competition for land and
economic opportunities between the two communities in conditions of war, particularly
in situations where population displacement had occurred due to violence. Against this
backdrop, a new generation of politicised Muslim youth activists emerged in the Eastern
province, which challenged both the traditional Muslim political leadership as well as the
Tamil nationalist position that Tamil parties represented Muslim interests as well.
The formation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) in 1986 was the outcome of
this emergence of Muslim identity politics based on the claim that the political interests
of the Sri Lankan Muslim community were fundamentally different from those of the
Tamils. xii Muslim political leaders argued that an alliance with the Tamil secessionist
insurgency would be utterly detrimental to Muslim interests. Instead, Muslims should
establish their own political party independent of Tamil politics and serve their interests
through negotiation and cooperation with the Sinhalese political leadership.
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The increasing hostility between the Tamil and Muslim communities in the North and
East during the war was marked by civilian massacres in the Eastern province, population
displacement, and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the North by the LTTE. This relationship of
hostility shaped the nature of a possible political solution to the ethnic conflict,
particularly in relation to the power-sharing arrangements in the Eastern province. The
proposals for the resolution of the ethnic conflict, from the late 1980s had to grapple with
the Muslim demand that Muslim regional autonomy should be an essential outcome of a
negotiated political settlement. The salience of the Muslim autonomy claim made itself
felt on two occasions. The first was in the early 1990s when a Parliamentary select
Committee was set up to find a framework of settlement to the ethnic conflict. The
second occasion was during the 2002 peace process.
In 1991, under President Ranasinghe Premadasa, Sri Lanka’s parliament appointed a
Select Committee, headed by an Opposition MP, Mangala Moonesinghe, to explore a
settlement framework acceptable to all the stakeholders to the conflict. By this time, the
Indian peace keeping forces had left Sri Lanka and hostilities against the LTTE had
resumed. The consultations initiated by the Moonesinghe Select Committee regenerated
the debate on a political solution that had remained dormant since the 1987 Indo-Lanka
Accord. The debate on devolution centred on two questions - the ‘extent of devolution’
and the ‘unit of devolution.’ The question of the ‘extent of devolution’ was about the
quantum of regional autonomy adequate to meet Tamil demands. The broad consensus at
that time was that any new settlement framework should expand the powers of the
provincial units beyond those granted to the Provincial Councils under the 13 th
Amendment to Sri Lanka’s 1978 Constitution. But the question of ‘unit of devolution’
turned out to be the most intractable issue in the devolution debate in the early 1990s.
The complexity concerning the ‘unit of devolution’ arose from the competing positions
held by Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim political parties on the nature of the autonomy unit
in the Northern and Eastern provinces. Already, it had been complicated by the Indian
government in the Indo-Lanka Accord of July 1987, which had recognized the Northern
and Eastern provinces as “areas of historical habitation of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking
peoples, who [had] at all times hitherto lived together in this territory with other ethnic
groups.” It even provided for the merger of the two provinces so that “one administrative
unit, having one elected Provincial Council” could be established. xiii Thus, with the Indo-
Lanka Accord of July 1987, the ‘merger’ of Northern and Eastern provinces became a
firm and ‘non-negotiable’ position in Tamil nationalist politics.
But the Muslim and Sinhalese parties resisted the ‘merger’ claim. The Muslim argument
was that the merger would create Tamil dominance in the regional administration of the
North and East and reduce the Muslims to a position of a disempowered minority while
endangering their security. xiv In order to safeguard Muslim interests and their security,
the SLMC formulated the demand for a separate Muslim unit, combining administrative
divisions with Muslim majority populations in Amparai and Batticaloa districts. A ‘noncontiguous
Muslim autonomy unit’ in the Eastern Province was the formulation that
eventually emerged in this debate. But all the Tamil parties in the Select Committee
process were adamant the North-East merger’ was ‘non-negotiable.’ The Select
Committee’ Report proposed a compromise - an Apex Council and two provincial
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councils for the two provinces. Both the Tamil and Muslim parties rejected this proposal
as a move designed to weaken the Tamil claim to a unified autonomy unit. The question
of the unit of devolution was left unresolved and still remains unresolved with little
possibility of a compromise between the Tamil and Muslim positions.
In the 2002 peace process, the Muslim question re-emerged in the form of Muslim parties
demanding a direct role in the negotiation process. The framework within which the 2002
peace process had been conceptualised was that the two principal parties – the UNF
government and the LTTE – alone should negotiate the cease-fire agreement and the
eventual peace agreement. As the SLMC, was a member of the governing UNF coalition,
its leader took part in the negotiations but only as a member of the government
delegation. Muslim parties resisted this framework fearing that the Sinhalese and the
Tamil leaders would ignore Muslim interests and claims. Moreover, following the split in
the SLMC and the fragmentation of the Muslim polity, Muslim anxieties were further
heightened. The Muslim parties made two major demands. First, there should be separate
Muslim representation at the peace talks with negotiations becoming a tripartite process.
Second, the negotiated solution should be a tripartite solution jointly arrived at by the
Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim leaders.
The LTTE’s approach to the Muslim issue in 2002-2003 reflects the particular political
complexity that came to characterize Muslim-Tamil relations during the civil war. The
LTTE did not recognize the Muslim claim for separate representation at the peace talks.
The war had been between the Sri Lankan state and the Tamil community, therefore the
settlement agreement should be between the two principal parties to the conflict. The
LTTE also claimed that once a peace agreement was reached with the state, the LTTE,
would sign a separate peace agreement with Muslim representatives of the Northern and
Eastern provinces. Given the recent history of extreme violence in the LTTE-Muslim
relations, the LTTE position did not have much credibility in the Muslim polity. During
the 2002 peace process, there in fact emerged a new wave of radicalisation of Muslim
youth, who felt excluded and marginalized from the government-LTTE negotiations
Meanwhile, adding to the complexity of the rights question of the Muslim minority,
during the 2002 peace process, a diversity of perspective and division arose among the
community. Some political activists among the Muslims in the Northern Province,
particularly those living in displaced conditions, began to argue that their needs and
interests were substantially different from those of the Muslims in the Eastern province.
Forming a new political party in 2008, the All Ceylon Muslim Congress claimed that
regional autonomy for Muslims is not a solution to their problems, but the right to return
to areas where they had earlier lived in the Northern Province.
What are the political consequences of the continuing fragmentation of the Sri Lankan
Muslim polity? One answer is that it has weakened the political bargaining capacity of
the Muslim minority during the peace processes and state reform initiatives. In opposing
Muslim representation in the 2002 peace talks, the LTTE emphasised that in the absence
of a unified voice, Muslim parties could not be accommodated at the negotiation table.
Deep divisions among Muslim political groups have also enabled the Sinhalese political
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leadership to exploit this disunity, pitting one group against the other. The other side of
the coin is that divisions have immensely benefited the Muslim political class. With no
unified Muslim leadership and voice, they have found it relatively easy to leave the main
Muslim political party, the SLMC, and join Sinhalese led coalition governments and be
personally rewarded with ministerial positions.
Plantation Tamils and Power-Sharing Claims
The rights violations of the Plantation Tamil community are legendary. With acutely low
wages, living and employment conditions of semi-slavery, exceedingly low social
development indicators, and deliberate discrimination by the post-colonial Sri Lankan
state, they are a community subjected to gross denial of human rights as well as minority
rights. Their grievances have been a part of the minority rights discourse in Sri Lanka
since the inception of the post-colonial nation state in the late 1940s. In fact, nearly one
million Tamil plantation workers and their families lost citizenship rights in one of the
earliest pieces of legislation passed by Sri Lanka’s independent legislature, namely, the
Citizenship Act of 1948. In the franchise law passed a year later, those who had lost
citizenship rights also lost their franchise rights. Sri Lanka’s judiciary saw nothing wrong
in these two laws, although Tamil political parties viewed them as discriminatory and
argued that they were ultra vires of Sri Lanka’s independent constitution. The plantation
Tamil community were the first and most celebrated victims of ethnic-discriminatory
public policy that has characterised Sinhalese majoritarian assertion in the post-colonial
political order in Sri Lanka. In a way, the initial impetus for mainstream Tamil
nationalism came from the group discrimination against the Plantation Tamil community.
As a social formation, the Plantation Tamil community is distinct from the mainstream,
‘Sri Lankan Tamil’ community who consider the island’s Northern-Eastern provinces as
their ‘traditional homeland.’ To drive home this distinction, the Plantation Tamils are
sometimes called ‘Tamils of recent Indian origin.’ The descriptive label ‘recent origin’
derives from their association with the establishment of the colonial plantation economy
by the British colonial rulers in the second half of the 19 th Century. The plantation
workers were brought from southern India and are mostly concentrated in the tea
plantations of the Central and Uva provinces. Relatively small populations of them
continue to be employed in rubber and tea plantations in the Sabaragamuwa, Western and
Southern provinces as a dispersed minority.
Till the late 1970s, two issues dominated the group rights politics of the Plantation Tamil
community - the first, citizenship rights and the second, their economic and social rights.
The 1948 Citizenship law had denied citizen rights to nearly one million Tamil plantation
workers and their descendents. The Sri Lankan government’s position was that since
these workers had ‘recently’ migrated to Sri Lanka from south India, the Indian
government should offer them Indian citizenship. The Indian government rejected this
position. The issue of some 975,000 stateless persons was partially resolved in October
1964 when the prime Ministers of Sri Lanka and India signed the Sirima-Shastri
agreement whereby Sri Lanka would give citizenship to 300,000, while the Indian
government would accept repatriation of 525,000. Even then, 150,000 people remained
in Sri Lanka as stateless. xv
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A subsequent agreement signed between the two governments in 1974 stipulated that the
two countries would share these ‘stateless’ people equally. This was an arrangement
made between the two governments, there was no consultation with the affected people
or their political leaders. It prompted S.Thondaman, the leader of the Ceylon Workers’
Congress, the leading plantation workers’ trade union, to remark that the Indian Tamils as
a “community of human beings, with soul, mind and body with personality” should not
be “apportioned between countries like beasts of burden…only to maintain good
neighbourly relations.” xvi
The mainstream Tamil nationalist movement took up the citizenship rights issue of the
‘stateless Tamils’ as a major theme in their campaign for ‘Tamil rights.’ For example, the
1985 Thimpu Principles, put forward by all the Tamil groups in their negotiations with
the Sri Lankan government, demanded the “recognition of the right to full citizenship and
other fundamental democratic rights of all Tamils, who look upon the Island as their
country.” xvii In 1986, the government of President J. R. Jayewardene conferred
citizenship to 94,000 ‘stateless’ Tamils in the plantation sector, bringing the citizenship
issue to an end. The closure of the citizenship problem coincided with the CWC joining
the ruling UNP in a coalition government. Evidently, President Jayewardene had an
electoral objective in mind.
After the citizenship issue was resolved, the question of the rights of the ‘Up Country
Tamil’ community shifted to two other main areas. Moreover, the theme of their
economic and social rights has taken a new turn after the privatisation of plantation
management in the mid-1980s. Among the politically active sections of the Up Country
Tamil community, the demand has emerged for autonomy and self-determination rights.
The context for this shift is the national debate on power-sharing and regional autonomy
for North-eastern Tamil and the Muslim communities.
The way in which the leadership of the Up-Country Tamil community has negotiated its
political relationship with the state, moving away from the militants politics of the Tamils
in the North-East, constitutes an interesting model. The Ceylon Workers’ Congress
(CWC) was initially a member of the Tamil United Front (TUF), formed in 1975, to
advance minority Tamil grievances. In 1976, the TUF adopted a militant programme of
action to mobilize the Tamils for national self-determination and the establishment,
through peaceful means, of a separate Tamil state. With this change in Tamil nationalist
politics, the CWC left the TUF and soon joined the government of the United National
Party government which came to power in 1977. What is noteworthy is that the CWC
chose the strategy of coalition building with the Sinhalese political establishment at a
time when the mainstream Tamil politics was in the process of shifting towards the path
of armed struggle. The CWC has continued this policy throughout the subsequent years,
joining UNP and PA led governments, without maintaining strict partisanship with either.
For example, the CWC contested the 1994 parliamentary elections in a coalition with the
UNP, but after the elections joined the PA to form a coalition regime. Again in 2004, the
CWC contested the parliamentary election in alliance with the UNP, but after the
elections joined the UPFA government. This flexibility in entering coalition alliances
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during and after parliamentary elections is a part of the innovative model of pragmatism
evolved by a small minority community in a context where the main minority community
has opted for the path of armed struggle against the state to win its self-determination
rights. Similarly, the political leadership of the Muslim community has adopted a
flexible strategy of coalition politics.
Meanwhile, there has been the concurrent debate in Sri Lanka on regional autonomy,
devolution and federalism as possible alternatives to secession. The proposals for a
political solution to the ethnic conflict and appropriate constitutional models have given
rise to a state reform discourse. It is in this context that a new political awakening has
emerged among political and social activists among the Up Country Tamil community to
envision a new framework of autonomy rights. Three perspectives have emerged in this
regard. The first seeks regional autonomy for an area comprising districts with a majority
of Plantation Tamil population. It is based on the principle of regional autonomy for
regional majority communities who are national minorities. Some advocates propose the
Pondicherry model of India. The second is power-sharing rights within a scheme of
devolution or federalism, for plantation Tamil communities who are either dispersed or
who constitute significant minorities in Sinhalese-majority districts. It is inspired by the
principle of non-territorial power sharing. The third perspective is strengthening of the
existing local government institutions with enhanced powers and functions to ensure that
the upcountry Tamil people have greater access to institutions of governance. This idea
presupposes the principle of asymmetrical local governance. xviii
“Localised” Minority communities and Constitutional Options
The issue of minority rights in Sri Lanka is related to the broad question of access to and
the sharing of state power. This question has been framed in terms of federalism and
autonomy in the pre-civil war period, and subsequently in a discourse of secession vs. the
unity of the state. The autonomy/federalism framing of minority rights returned to the
political debate in 2002-2003, but it did not last long. Although the main focus of this
debate has been on the political relations between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities,
it has also given rise to other proposals for multi-level power sharing arrangements to
accommodate political aspirations of smaller minority communities. These have
emanated from the perspectives of smaller, regional or ‘localised’ minority communities.
The Oslo principles on federalism and internal self-determination reached between the
government and the LTTE in December 2000 provided the impetus for this new thinking
on power sharing. As Devaraj notes, the agreement between the Sri Lankan government
and the LTTE to ‘explore’ new structures of power sharing had opened the way for
“deepening of the power sharing discourse.” xix
We have already discussed the claims made for power sharing rights from the
perspectives of the Muslim and Plantation Tamil communities. Here the focus is on the
localised communities which are dispersed in relatively small numbers in areas,
provinces as well as districts, where the majority of the population belong to a national or
regional majority. In the Tamil-speaking North, the Sinhalese, Muslims and various other
mixed communities are such localised minorities. Similarly, in the South-eastern coastal
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areas where the local majority population is Muslim, Sinhalese and Tamils constitute a
local minority. In the Sinhalese majority provinces – or in the so-called ‘South’ – the
Tamils, Muslims and other ethnic groups are minority communities. Sri Lanka’s
dominant debate on power sharing and federalism does not account for the group rights
of these small minorities. Having being excluded from the reckonings of regional
autonomy, they run the risk of becoming oppressed minorities under territorialized
devolution and federalism.
Sri Lanka’s devolution proposals drafted in the 1990s did not take into account the rights
of local minorities. One reason for their exclusion is that the devolution discourse as
evolved in Sri Lanka has been shaped by the logic of ‘ethnic nationalisms’ of Sinhalese,
Tamil and Muslim communities. It has turned the concept of ethnic self-determination
into a vision of territorialized ethnic enclaves, or ethnic homelands. xx Also, it is based on
the conventional federalist reasoning that the best way to politically empower a national
minority is to make them a regional majority, with constitutionally guaranteed powers of
regional, or territorialized, autonomy. In such a framework, would the rights of regional,
local and dispersed minority communities be protected? Rajasingham-Senanayake quite
rightly expresses the concern that the territorialized model of devolution/federalism is
very likely to make official the ethnic enclave mentality and strengthen fears, suspicions
and cultural differences that have been built in the course of the protracted war and
violence. In this argument, devolution for multi-culturalism and pluralism should have
arrangements to safeguard the rights of local minorities while ensuring their safety and
security from the hegemonic possibilities of the local majorities.
They centre on five issues xxi - representational rights, security rights, recognition rights,
right to development and governance rights. I propose that they require innovative
constitutional and institutional options. A reform agenda may be elaborated as follows.
The first set of rights, representational rights, calls for constitutional guarantees for all
minorities to secure representation in the assemblies of governance, in parliament,
provincial councils and local government bodies. The electoral system will need to be
reformed to translate these constitutional guarantees into institutional practice. Smaller
minorities would not stand a chance in ‘normal’ first past the post electoral systems.
The question of security guarantees for smaller minorities can be partially addressed by
means of ensuring representational rights as above. In addition, measures of affirmative
action should be provided, particularly through non-territorial mechanisms of federalism.
Recognition rights entail their recognition as political communities of equal worth,
followed by the recognition of their language and cultural rights. Developmental rights
emanate from the need to alter the continuing conditions of economic and social
marginality of almost all these marginal minorities and link them with mainstream of the
developmental process, thereby enabling them to benefit from state policies for
development. Access to state power encompasses representation, legislative decision
making and participation in executive process - at the national, provincial and local
levels. In concrete terms, this agenda calls for (i) territorial as well as non-territorial
federalism, (ii) federalizing national, provincial and local assemblies of governance with
guaranteed participation of minorities, and (iii) making new electoral arrangements for
smaller minorities to secure representation in sub-national assemblies.
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Changing Dynamics of Minority Rights Discourse 2007-2008
As suggested in this paper, the arguments, discourses and policy options concerning
minority rights in Sri Lanka have been largely shaped by the trajectories of the civil war.
For two and half decades, the military strength of the Tamil secessionist campaign, the
capacity of the Tamil society to endure a protracted civil war and the resolve of the Sri
Lankan state to defeat the Tamil nationalist insurgency have conditioned the extent to
which minority rights should be acknowledged, accommodated or resisted. For example,
the arguments for minimal political reforms as well as wider state reforms for federalist
autonomy have been policy options that emerged in the Sinhalese polity in response to
the challenge of the Tamil nationalist insurgency. When the Tamil insurgency was
militarily strong, the Tamil nationalists could demand extensive regional autonomy, as
exemplified in LTTE’s proposals in 2003 for an Interim Self-Governing Authority
(ISGA). In 2007-2008, as the LTTE has been militarily weakened, the nature as well as
the terms of the political solution to the ethnic conflict has been undergoing a major
alteration. Below, I explore the changing dynamics of the minority rights discourse in
response to the anticipated defeat of the Tamil insurgency.
When hostilities between the newly elected Mahinda Rajapakse administration and the
LTTE broke out in 2006 and developed into an undeclared was in 2007, the process to
find a negotiated settlement to the ethnic conflict came to an effective end. For both the
government and the LTTE, the resumption of war seemed to be the preferred option. The
ruling coalition led by the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) – is a new political
configuration in which two hardcore Sinhalese nationalist parties, the Janatha Vimukthi
Peramuna (JVP) and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), play a key role in defining the
regime’s ideology, policies and approaches to the ethnic conflict. The JHU denies the
existence of an ethnic conflict or minority grievances. For the JHU, the LTTE rebellion is
pure terrorism. Terrorism calls for a military solution. There is no political problem that
requires a political solution. The JVP’s position is slightly different. The JVP
acknowledges the existence of minority grievances, but rejects the legitimacy of the
insurgency. The JVP wants the state to defeat the LTTE militarily and then offer
‘decentralization’, and not devolution, as a framework of accommodating minority
demands. The policies of President Rajapakse to the ethnic conflict seem to be a
pragmatic synthesis of the positions of both the JVP and JHU.
In 2004-2006 as the peace process foundered, it impacted quite negatively on the
prospects of resolving the ethnic conflict by political means within an autonomy
framework. xxii In December 2002 the United National Front (UNF) government and the
LTTE had arrived at an understanding, to ‘explore’ a federal solution to the ethnic
conflict within the parameters of a ‘united Sri Lanka.’ This understanding reached at the
Oslo talks initially created the impression of a breakthrough in Sri Lanka’s protracted
ethnic conflict that would enable minority aspirations to be constitutionalized in a manner
that would enjoy the concurrence of the majority as well. However, it took only a little
time for the Oslo understanding to be subsumed by the irreconcilability differences
between the government and the LTTE on how to take the peace process forward. The
LTTE’s decision to suspend its participation in peace talks until the government proposed
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a scheme for an interim administration for the North and East brought the negotiation
process into a stage of crisis. When the UNF government made two sets of proposals for
an interim administration in May 2003, the LTTE rejected them as inadequate in the
proposed scope of power and authority. In turn the LTTE developed and presented its
own proposals for what was called an Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA).
The LTTE proposals envisaged a structure of self-rule, with extensive regional
autonomy. The interim body would have “plenary powers” for the governance of the two
provinces, including “all powers and functions in relation to regional administration
exercised by the GOSL [Government of Sri Lanka] in and for the North East.”. xxiii The
LTTE, it appeared, expected the new interim mechanism to formalise the existence of
what they called their ‘de facto administration’. The opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party,
which had by this time mobilized Sinhalese nationalist resistance against the UNF-LTTE
ceasefire and negotiations, described the LTTE’s proposals for an interim administration,
as a ‘blueprint for secession.’ xxiv The ISGA proposals even surprised the UNF
government. It led to a new crisis in Colombo and the collapse of the UNF government.
This controversy demonstrated the vast gulf that existed between the Sinhalese political
establishment and the LTTE on the nature of even an interim political solution to the
ethnic conflict. The Sinhalese political establishment saw it in minimalist terms, whereas
the LTTE approached the interim as a necessary step to formalize the regional
administration – or the regional sub-state – it had established.
Regime changes following the parliamentary election in April 2004 and the Presidential
election in November 2005 led to further polarization of government-LTTE relations. If
the defeated UNF represented an unstable middle ground between two extreme positions
on minority rights, the new UPFA regime and the LTTE constituted opposing positions
that could not be reconciled through negotiations. The war once again became the
medium through which the outcome of the conflict was to be determined.
The UPFA administration headed by President Rajapakse is in a way a multi-ethnic
coalition, despites its commitment to a military solution to the ethnic conflict. Since
1994, all governments have been multi-ethnic coalitions of Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim
political parties with some measure of a proto-consociational character. This multi-ethnic
coalition dimension of regimes makes it necessary for the governments to explore greater
political accommodation with the minority communities. President Rajapakse, in May
2006, established an All Party Representative Committee (APRC) to formulate the
framework of a political solution to the ethnic conflict. The Committee comprised
representatives of most of the political parties in parliament, the exceptions being the
United National Party (UNP), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the JVP. The UNP,
the main opposition party in Parliament, and the JVP, a leading member of the UPFA
coalition government, boycotted the APRC proceedings.
The APRC process met with many challenges and complexities between 2006 and 2007.
The trouble began when the APRC’s Committee of Experts submitted an interim report
in December 2006 proposing a political solution with enhanced province-based
devolution. It proposed to further strengthen the existing system of power-sharing in Sri
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Lanka to address Tamil aspirations for regional autonomy. The President and the ruling
party immediately dissociated themselves from the report of the Experts Committee.
Sinhalese nationalist partners of the ruling coalition, the JVP and JHU, harshly
denounced the proposals. Despite this political setback, the APRC proceedings continued
through to 2008 but with little progress in terms of any concrete proposals. The hardcore
Sinhalese nationalist representatives of the APRC appear to believe that neither the
APRC nor the government should make any commitment on the nature and scope of a
political solution until the war against the LTTE is successfully concluded. The
assumption being that once the LTTE is militarily defeated and the Tamil community is
disarmed, the political solution would not require any degree of regional autonomy.
The way in which the Rajapakse administration has re-defined the debate about a
political solution warrants acknowledgement. xxv By 2008, it became quite clear that
President Rajapakse has altered the basic framework within which a negotiated political
solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict has hitherto been conceptualized. He has changed
four components of that framework and added two new elements. The first, is about the
constitutional scope of the envisaged political solution. President Rajapakse’s formula is
‘maximum devolution within a unitary state’ as the guiding principle of the political
solution. The limited scope of regional autonomy implied in this formula is minimum
devolution which is a fundamental deviation from the positions held by the previous PA
and UNF governments.
The second is about the basic strategic path to peace in Sri Lanka. The government
appears to believe that a political solution without a military victory over the LTTE will
not provide sustainable and durable peace in Sri Lanka. In the government’s thinking, as
articulated by the President and the government’s political theorists, a military solution,
or a political solution paralleled with a military victory, is more likely to work. This
differs from the argument of previous governments that the LTTE needed to be militarily
weakened in order to persuade its leadership to opt for a political settlement. The
emphasis now is on defeating, rather than weakening, the LTTE.
The third, emanating from the first and the second, concerns the LTTE’s role in a
possible negotiated solution to the ethnic conflict. The government does not seem to
believe, nor does it hope for, any negotiations with the LTTE. The military defeat and the
elimination of the LTTE from the politico-military equation seem to be the government’s
strategic objective in the present phase of the war. Those who pursue the objective of
peace without the LTTE treat the LTTE as the ‘absolute enemy’ of the Sri Lankan state.
The LTTE is seen as the main obstacle to peace in Sri Lanka, and to be removed through
military conquest.
The fourth, concerns the unit of regional autonomy. With the help of the JVP and through
judicial intervention, the government has achieved a goal which no other government
would have dared - the de-merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces. Tamil
nationalists for long held that the merger of the two provinces was a non-negotiable
principle in any political settlement. Acknowledging this, the Indo-Lanka Accord of July
1987 proposed the merger of the two provinces. They were temporarily merged a few
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months later. The de-merger occurred in 2006 when the Supreme Court, in a
determination of a petition filed by the JVP, held that that temporary merger was illegal.
Almost all the non-LTTE Tamil parties and groups have now reconciled to this new
political reality and abandoned the conventional Tamil nationalist notion of a unified
Tamil homeland encompassing the Northern and Eastern provinces.
The fifth component,entails pragmatic political deals with the non-LTTE Tamil militant
groups as the military thrust against the LTTE proceeds.. The first phase of this new
strategy has been successfully implemented in the de-merged Eastern province, with the
active participation of the group Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP), which broke
away from the LTTE a few years ago. In the North, the Eelam People’s Democratic Party
(EPDP) heads the non-LTTE entity with which the government has already established a
strategic partnership. These anti-LTTE Tamil parties, which earlier had engaged in the
armed insurgency against the state, share the view that the LTTE, with its secessionist
goal and continuing commitment to the armed struggle, is the main obstacle to securing
Tamil rights in cooperation and collaboration with the Sinhalese political establishment.
Their strategic path is to win Tamil demands not by confronting the state, but by alliancemaking
with the Sinhalese political establishment that manages the Sri Lankan state.
The sixth is the willingness demonstrated by minority political groups, except the LTTE
and TNA, to accept under the Rajapakse presidency, a political solution to the ethnic
conflict that ensures a secondary status to ethnic minorities. Some of the major minority
political parties seem ready to accept the status of unequal citizens on the argument that
confrontation and war with the Sinhalese-led state has done little for the minorities.
Cooperation and collaboration is viewed more acceptable and pragmatic than resistance
to the state that produces no tangible benefit. The minority parties in Sri Lanka also seem
to recognise that in the post 9/11 world, the best course of action available for ethnic
minorities is the path of least resistance and unilateral compromise. This is reinforced by
Rajapakse’s strategy of effectively linking the war against LTTE with the global war
against terrorism.
Internationalization of Concern for Minority Rights
Sri Lanka has the distinction among South Asian states of inviing a very high degree of
international concerns for minority rights. Two reasons have contributed to this concern.
First, Tamil minority citizens living in the Northern and Eastern provinces have been
direct victims of humanitarian consequences of the protracted civil war. Second, is the
realization among key international actors that governments in Sri Lanka driven by the
imperatives of Sinhalese nationalist agenda, are unlikely to voluntarily guarantee
minority rights.
India was the first external actor to engage the Sri Lankan state on the rights of the Tamil
community in the early and mid-1980s. xxvi In the early phase of the civil war, Sri Lankan
government was pursuing a military option to defeat the separatist insurgency. The Indian
government while backing the Tamil groups, tried to bring about a negotiated settlement.
The Thimpu Talks of 1985 between representatives of the Sri Lankan government and
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Tamil militant groups were facilitated by the Indian government. They failed but the
Indian government continued its efforts at a negotiated settlement that would ensure some
measure of regional self-rule to the Tamil community. The entry of the concept of
devolution of power in Sri Lanka’s political discourse in the mid-1980s was specifically
an Indian contribution. The Indo-Lanka Accord of July 1987 proposed a political package
of devolution which established through a constitutional amendment a system of
Provincial Councils. India’s role is particularly significant because it succeeded in
persuading a reluctant Sinhalese political establishment to acknowledge the necessity of
regional autonomy to accommodate Tamil political aspirations.
International concerns about the position of the minorities in Sri Lanka’s post-civil war
polity have re-emerged in 2008, in the context of government claims about winning the
war against the LTTE. The US has reiterated that a military victory should be
accompanied by a political solution to the ethnic conflict. India too, is emphasizing that
there is no ‘military solution’ to the ethnic conflict and the government of Sri Lanka
should introduce a political solution acceptable to all communities, including the ethnic
minorities. Apparently, both the US and India are apprehensive that a military victory for
the state might not provide an incentive to the government to share power with the ethnic
minorities. Sri Lanka’s dilemma is that there is no strong domestic constituency, other
than the minorities themselves that can make an argument for the protection of minority
rights in a comprehensive manner. But the protracted civil war has also made the
minority communities ineffective and powerless in their capacity to influence any
significant state reform process.
Conclusion
Sri Lanka’s minority rights discourse has been widened and then narrowed down quite
significantly, in the context of the ethno-political civil war. While the understanding of
the concept of ‘minority’ has been contested and transformed, the focus of minority
‘rights’ has shifted decisively from the domain of civil and political as well as collective
rights to group rights along with self-determination claims. The rights claims made by the
Tamil nationalist groups engaged in an armed struggle with the Sri Lankan state called
for a radical agenda of state reform in Sri Lanka as the alternative to a secessionist
outcome. However, with changes in the balance of power between the state and the
LTTE in the course of the civil war, the state reform agenda has also been subjected to
major alterations. In re-defining the political discourse of minority rights, governments
have contributed significantly. The UNP government introduced in 1987-88 the concept
of devolution and the institution of provincial councils to constitute the framework of a
political solution to the ethnic conflict. The PA government in 1995-96 expanded the
scope of devolution by proposing greater autonomy to provincial councils in a semifederal
framework. The UNF government introduced in 1993 federalism as the suitable
constitutional framework for accommodating minority political aspirations. The UPFA
government of 2005 took the debate away from federalism and the new UPFA
government has taken this position further to re-frame the scope of power-sharing in a
minimalist formula of ‘maximum devolution within a unitary state.’
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Meanwhile, the strategies of minority political parties and movements underwent notable
changes. The Tamil community remains deeply divided over the best political path to
achieve its political aspirations. The LTTE continues to wage an armed struggle to reach
the goal of ‘national independence’ which may mean secession or even confederal
regional autonomy. Quite a few other Tamil parties are strongly opposed to the goal of
secession as well as the strategy of armed struggle. They have opted for sharing power at
the level of central government, with even limited autonomy to the periphery. In
achieving this goal, they have even entered into alliances with hardcore Sinhalese
nationalist parties on the argument that militarily defeating the LTTE is a necessary precondition
for the Tamils to achieve their rights without challenging the state.
Two smaller minorities, Muslims and Up-Country Tamils, have adopted a pragmatic
strategy of alliance building with the main Sinhalese political parties. This strategy has
enabled them to join coalition governments, with the assurance of receiving cabinet
positions in the central government and representation as well as sharing of office in the
provincial councils and local government bodies. The strategy of coalition politics seems
to have served their interests quite well.
In what direction would the minority rights debate move if the government’s military
campaign to defeat the LTTE succeeds? While it is hard to predict the outcome of the
war, it is also difficult to see how a strong minority rights argument can politically
survive in a context of a military victory of majority Sinhalese nationalism over minority
Tamil nationalism. The argument for minority rights will come from two sources, the
weak civil society committed to human rights and minority rights and a few international
actors, notably India and the US. The Indian and the US governments have been
repeatedly reminding the Rajapakse administration in Sri Lanka to find a political
solution, paralleled with the military solution, in which minority rights are protected and
some measure of regional self-rule is guaranteed. It needs to be noted that under the
present government, the space for external actors to influence government policy is quite
limited. After nearly three decades of civil war, Sri Lanka’s prospects for
institutionalization if minority rights in a framework of equality and power-sharing seem
weak.
i This notion of ‘privileged minorities’ vs. the ‘underprivileged majority’ continues to surface in the
Sinhalese nationalist discourse of victimology. Thus, the claims to equality made by ethnic and religious
minorities are interpreted as an attempt to secure or re-gain the privileged status that they were supposed to
have enjoyed under the colonial rule. One of the early articulations of this position was by J. L. Kotelawala,
a leader of the first independent government, who became the Prime Minister in 1952. In a Senate debate
on the proposed national flag for independent Sri Lanka, Kotelawala said: “The imperial policy was to
subjugate the majority community and extract the wealth of the country…. The minority communities were
able to enjoy the crumbs that fell from the table and what the minority communities left went to the
majority community. That is what happened in India, Burma, Malaya, and Ceylon. The minority
communities were, under the British rule, in a privileged position as against the majority community….
Now the minorities are worried about their privileged position.’ (Senate Debates, January 13, 1948,
Column 431). In 2008, sixty years after Kotelawala made this speech, Sinhalese nationalist parties in Sri
Lanka continue to propagate this thesis of ‘privileged minorities’ vs. the ‘dispossessed majority.’
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ii
Clause 12 (2) of the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, 1978. The
Constitution further elaborates discrimination as follows: “No person shall, on the grounds of race, religion,
language, caste, sex or any such grounds, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with
regard to access to shops, public restaurants, hotels, places of public entertainment and places of public
worship of his own religion.”- Clause 12 (30) of the 1978 Constitution. It is important to mention here that
this particular provision is meant to protect the rights of social minorities (the marginal caste communities)
from the discrimination practiced by hegemonic castes within the Tamil ethnic community. It does not
refer to the protection of Tamil rights as an ethnic minority. In other words, it seeks to prevent internal
discrimination within Tamil society.
iii
Clauses 18 and 19 respectively.
iv
The inaction of the Sri Lankan state to properly implement even the existing legislation on minority
language rights is quite disturbing. The Official Languages Commission as well as human rights
organizations have repeatedly pointed out to successive governments that strengthening institutional
capacity, supported by a clear public commitment of the government, is crucial to the proper
implementation of constitutionally guaranteed language rights of the minorities. All successive
governments have not done much beyond providing lip service to the language rights issue.
v
No government since has thought it necessary to hold fresh provincial council elections for this Province,
although elections have been held for other provincial councils many times.
vi
This point is elaborated in Uyangoda, Jayadeva, 2007, “Power-Sharing and Autonomy Rights of
‘Minority’ Communities in Sri Lanka,” in Amal Jayawardane (ed.), Perspectives on National Integration in
Sri Lanka, Colombo: National Integration Programme Unit.
vii
This tension between the liberal and nationalist approaches to human rights developed into a minor
controversy in 2003 during the peace negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. The
Sri Lankan government, backed by the international community and local human rights groups, brought the
issue of human rights to the negotiation agenda, with the intention of persuading the LTTE to commit itself
to a regime of civil and political rights in the areas under its administration. Ian Martin, the former head of
the Amnesty International was invited to prepare a ‘road map’ to human rights. Although the LTTE
accepted this move, they were not enthusiastic about what they called the ‘individual rights’ approach. As
the LTTE leaders pointed out in personal conversations as well as their propaganda literature, the ‘selfdetermination
rights’ of the Tamil people should take precedence over individual rights.
viii
It is necessary to make a distinction between ‘collective’ rights and ‘group’ rights in this discussion.
Collective rights are cultural, language and religious etc. rights that individual members of any ethnic
community should enjoy by way constitutional or legal guarantees. They are individually enjoyed rights of
a community. The concept of group rights refers to specific political rights of community enjoyed on the
recognition that that community is the agency and the holder of those rights. Collective rights are usually
‘granted’ by the state whereas group rights are ‘earned’ through political struggle.
ix
Section 29 (2) of the Soulbury Constitution stipulated that no law passed by parliament shall (i) prohibit
or restrict the free exercise of any religion, (ii) subject persons of any community or religion liable to
special disabilities or restrictions, (iii) confer on persons of any community or religion special privileges or
advantages.
x
For the ‘deficiency thesis’, see James W. Nickel, 1997, “Group Agency and Group Rights,” in Ian
Shapiro and Will Kymlicka, (Eds.), Ethnicity and Group Rights, NOMOS XXXIX, New York and London:
New York University Press, pp.235-256.
xi
Rajan Hoole records and comments on these aspects in his, 2001, Sri Lanka, The Arrogance of Power:
Myths, Decadence and Murder, Colombo: University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), particularly,
Chapter 20, pp. 308-348.
xii
For background details of the emergence of the SLMC see, Shari Knoerzer, 1998, “Transformation of
Muslim Political Identity [in Sri Lanka], in Mithran Tiruchelvam and Dattathreya, C. S. (Eds.), Culture and
Politics of Identity in Sri Lanka, Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
xiii
Clauses 1.4 and 2.2 respectively of the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987.
xiv
For an extensive account of this debate, see Loganathan, K. 1996, Sri Lanka, Lost Opportunities: Past
Attempts at Resolving Ethnic Conflict, Colombo: University of Colombo, pp. 168-183.
xv
R. Sahadevan, 1995, India and Overseas Indians: The Case of Sri Lanka, Delhi: Kalinga Publishers, p.
144.
xvi
Cited in Sahadevan, 1995, p. 189.
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xvii Cited in Loganathan, 1996, p. 105.
xviii This account is based on the author’s dialogues and discussions with political and social activists in the
Up Country plantation Tamil society.
xix P. P. Devaraj, 2004, ‘Introduction,” Rights and Power Sharing Mechanism for Non-Territorial Minority
Communities in Sri Lanka, Colombo: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. This book contains the papers presented at a
seminar held in Colombo in May 2003 in an atmosphere of some optimism generated by the government-
LTTE commitment to explore a federal solution to the ethnic conflict. This is also the first time that the
thinking on power sharing mechanisms for smaller minorities was publicly articulated.
xx Rajasingham - Senanayake, Darini, 1999, “The Dangers of Devolution: The Hidden Economies of
Armed Conflict,” in Robert Rotberg (ed.), Creating Peace in Sri Lanka, Civil War and Reconciliation,
Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.
xxi Uyangoda, Jayadeva, 2004, “Minorities, Federalism and Non-Territorial Power Sharing,” in P. P.
Devaraj (Ed.), 2004, Rights and Power Sharing Mechanism for Non-Territorial Minority Communities in
Sri Lanka, Colombo: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, pp. 18-29; Uyangoda, Jayadeva, 2007, “Power-Sharing and
Autonomy Rights of ‘Minority’ Communities in Sri Lanka,” in Amal Jayawardane (ed.), Perspectives on
National Integration in Sri Lanka, Colombo: National Integration Programme Unit.
xxii For extensive discussions on the progress as well as breakdown of the 2002 peace process, Uyangoda,
Jayadeva, 2007, Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Changing Dynamics, Washington DC: East-West Center;
Uyangoda, Jayadeva and Perera, Morina, 2004, Sri Lanka’s Peace Process 2002: Critical Perspectives,
Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association; Liyanage, Sumanasiri, 2008, ‘One Step at a Time,’ Reflections on
the Peace Process in Sri Lanka, Colombo: South Asia Peace Institute; Goodhand, Jonathan and Bart Klem,
2005, Aid, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka 2000-2005, Colombo: The Asia Foundation.
xxiii The ISGA was to establish “separate institutions for the administration of justice” and “powers to
borrow internally and externally”. Also, the ISGA “shall have control over the marine and offshore
resources of the adjacent seas and the power to regulate the access” to the sea. See also Balasingham,
Anton, 2004, War and Peace in Sri Lanka: Armed Struggle and Peace Efforts of Liberation Tigers,
Mitcham, England: Fairmax Publishing Ltd., pp. 503-514.
xxiv A press statement on ISGA (Nov 4, 2003), said, “The SLFP views with grave concern the proposals
released by the LTTE for the establishment of an ISGA which lays the legal foundation for a future,
separate, sovereign state. The proposals clearly affect the sovereignty of the Republic of Sri Lanka and
violates its Constitution”.
xxv See Uyangoda, Jayadeva, 2008, The Way We Are: Politics of Sri Lanka 2007-2008, Colombo: Social
Scientists’ Association, pp. 55-57.
xxvi There is a wide body of literature on India’s engagement with Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. Some notable
examples are Ganguly, Rajat, 1998, Kin State Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts: Lessons from South Asia,
New Delhi: SAGE Publications; Jayatilleka, Dayan, 1995, Sri Lanka: The Travails of a Democracy,
Unfinished War, Protracted Crisis, New Delhi: Vikas; Kodikara, Shelton U, 1989, Indo-Sri Lanka Accord
of July 1987, Colombo: University of Colombo; Krishna, Sankaran, 1999, Postcolonial Insecurities: India,
Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; Loganathan,
Keteshwaran 1996, Sri Lanka, Lost Opportunities: Past Attempts at Resolving Ethnic Conflict, Colombo:
University of Colombo; Muni, S. D. 1993, Prangs of Proximity: India and Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Crisis, New
Delhi: SAGE.
120

Inclusion and Accountability in a ‘New’ Democratic Nepal
Mahendra Lawoti
The restructuring of the state in Nepal has begun after the success of the second people’s
movement in April 2006 that forced the King to give up power. Since then major
reforms initiated include the declaration of the state as secular, a commitment to
federalism in the Interim Constitution, distribution of citizenship to more than 2.6
million, i the election to the Constituent Assembly with a mixed electoral method and the
abolition of monarchy. Are the reforms going in the right direction? Are they adequate?
What other political and structural reforms are necessary for democratic state building?
How should some of the contentious questions, such as the type of federalism to be
adopted, be settled?
One guideline for assessing and arguing for further reforms should be the potential for the
reforms to tackle the problems Nepal witnessed in its previous democratic practice in the
1990s, namely growing inequality, increasing or continuous exclusion of marginalized
groups like the Dalit, indigenous nationalities, Madhesi, and women, and the culture of
power abuse among political leaders in absence of effective accountability mechanisms. ii
These problems went on to create governance crises, fuel the Maoist insurgency, and
exacerbate ethnic movements and conflicts in the country.
To address these problems, the first step is to identify the causes. This chapter begins by
identifying centralization as the root cause. I show how centralization contributed to
inequality, exclusion and the culture of impunity. In the second part, I propose political
institutions that would promote ethnic and class inclusion and facilitate political
accountability. I argue that the centralized state has to be restructured to share power
among different ideological, class and national/ethnic and caste groups and among
different sectors of government, that is, both vertically and horizontally, to address
exclusion and the lack of accountability. I argue that power redistribution could facilitate
inclusion of both class and ethnic groups, promote accountability, and contribute towards
the consolidation of democracy.
Power sharing, however, need not weaken the central state. In fact, the central state will
continue to play a very important role in some sectors. It is argued that if the center
confines its functions to limited necessary arenas, it will be more effective. The state’s
overall effectiveness will, in fact, increase when different sectors and levels of
governments are effective in their respective sphere of jurisdictions.
Centralization, Inequality, Exclusion &Violent Conflict
Excessive Centralization in Nepal
The Nepali polity has been highly centralized - most of the state power resides at the
center. I have discussed the various dimensions of excessive centralization elsewhere, so
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I will just briefly summarize it here (Lawoti 2003d, 2007b). The main mechanism of
centralization was the unitary structure of the state because of which even the minimal
power awarded to local governments through administrative decentralization was at the
mercy of the center. The first past the post (FPTP) electoral method facilitated the central
power to be confined to a party without it necessarily having a popular majority by
facilitating the creation of an artificial majority. Moreover, at the center most of the state
power was concentrated in the cabinet. The parliament mostly followed the executive in
legislation and other official business while most central agencies depended upon the
executive for budget and personnel, in addition to being influenced through the
nomination process.
The centralization of the polity was facilitated and reinforced by the centralizing political
culture. The society ingrained by the caste system and patriarchy maintained inegalitarian
values that favored certain caste and gender groups. The political parties and
state agencies were overwhelmingly dominated by the caste hill Hindu elite males
(CHHEM). Further, the political parties were run non-democratically, that allowed the
top political leaders to maintain a firm grip on the parties for long periods of time.
Centralization and Inequality
Inequality in Nepal increased during the 1990s as compared to the previous decades. The
Gini Index was 0.300 in the eighties in Nepal and it increased to 0.426 in the nineties, to
become the highest in South Asia. Ironically, inequality increased despite the
improvement in overall Human Development Indicators. The “income share of the top
10 percent of the people increased from 21 percent in the mid 1980s to 35 percent by the
mid-1990s, while the share of the bottom 40 percent shrank from 24 percent to 15 percent
by the mid 1990s” (Sharma 2006: 1245). Poverty was significantly higher in rural areas
(44 percent) than in urban areas (20 percent). The opening up of the market since the
1980s may have further increased the inequality. In the period 1988-1996, the nominal
income of people living in urban areas increased by 16 percent per annum (from US $126
to US $285) as against only 4 percent for the rural population (from US $95 to US $125).
(Lawoti 2007a; Sharma 2006).
The few development objectives the government achieved such as the extension of roads
and the expansion of the service sector like private banking and airline services largely
benefited a small section of the society. Centralization reinforced inequality by denying
regions and rural areas with authority and resources to develop their areas and look after
the welfare of their people while the central government focused on policies that
benefitted the urban areas and capital. The governments were unable to foster economic
growth and meet the rising aspirations of a large number of people. They also failed to
introduce social and political reforms to end inequalities and discrimination.
Exclusion of Marginalized Groups iii
The adoption of the majoritarian institutions of democracy in 1990 allowed the
continuation of centralization. The policies formulated and implemented by a state
dominated by the CHHEM led to the political exclusion of marginalized groups. The
CHHE (caste hill Hindu elite) comprised the largest ethnic group consisting of the
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largest two caste groups spread across the country, the Chhetri and Bahun, and two
smaller castes, Thakuri and Sanyasi. The unitary and centralized state structure
contributed to the continuing domination of the CHHE by facilitating the group’s
domination of the Center. As a result, the various national/ethnic and caste groups, many
of whom are regionally concentrated, became disempowered and disadvantaged
minorities at the center.
The control of the center in a unitary system allowed the CHHE to impose public
policies, which were influenced by their values, over all other groups. The CHHEM
influenced cultural, educational, and development policies contributing to the political
exclusion of marginalized groups (Lawoti 2005; Bhattachan 2000a; Gurung et al. 2000).
For instance, due to the central policy of instruction in Khas-Nepali language in schools,
there was a high dropout rate among non-native Nepali speakers. (Yadav 1992; Stash
and Hannum 2001; Maddox 2003). The lower literacy rate among the marginalized
groups disadvantaged them in every day life. It lowered their abilities for articulating and
demanding rights, competing for resources, jobs, and political offices, as well as being
effective supporters of ethnic movements and parties.
The FPTP electoral method also contributed to the exclusion of marginalized sociocultural
groups. The FPTP system in Nepal has been biased towards the big political
parties, iv which were overwhelmingly dominated by the CHHEM. For example, in 1999,
the CHHEM dominated the two largest political parties accounting for a presence of over 70
percent in the Nepali Congress and 87 percent in the mainstream Communist Party Nepal-UML.
This has led to under or non representation of smaller identity oriented parties in elected
offices. A comparison of seats based on votes under the then FPTP system and the
proportional representation method in the three successive elections to the House of
Representative (HOR) after 1990, shows that the marginalized groups got less
representation under the FPTP system. For instance, in 1999 the National People’s
Liberation Party (NPLP) of the indigenous nationalities with 1.11 percent of the vote and
the Nepal Goodwill Party (NGP) of Madhesi of Tarai region with 3.34 percent of popular
votes would have got 3 and 7 seats respectively under a PR method, instead of 0 and 5
seats under FPTP (see table 1). In the 1994 hung Parliament, the NPLP with 1.18 percent
of popular votes would have elected 3 members.
The 2008 CA election has further demonstrated that PR electoral method can contribute
in increasing representation of Dalit, indigenous nationalities, Madhesi and women. The
Constituent Assembly elected a significant contingent of Dalit members (50) for the first
time in Nepal’s history. There were no Dalit representation during 1994 and 1999,
whereas a single Dalit had been elected to the Lower House in 1991. Likewise, the
representation of women (33.22 percent) (Aryal 2008) as well as that of indigenous
nationalities and Madhesi has increased significantly. Most Dalit, indigenous
nationalities and women got into the CA through the proportional representative seats.
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Table 1: Parliament Seats under FPTP and Proportional Electoral Systems, 1991, 1994, and 1999
Political 1991 1994 1999
Parties Total vote Vote % FPTP PR Total vote Vote % FPTP PR Total vote Vote % FPTP PR
NC 2742452 41.51 110 85 2545287 37.51 83 77 3214786 38.03 113 78
CPN-
2352601 34.67 88 71 2734568 32.35 68 67
UML 2040102 30.88 69 63
CPN-ML 567987 6.82 14
NDP-C 478604 7.24 3 15 295812 3.55 8
NDP-T 392499 5.94 1 12
NDP - 1367148 20.15 20 41 902328 10.83 12 22
NGP 298610 4.52 6 9 265847 3.92 3 8 278435 3.34 5 7
NWPP 91335 1.38 2 3 75072 1.11 4 2 48685 .58 1 1
UPFN 351904 5.33 9 11 100285 1.48 3 74669 .90 1 2
CPN-D 177323 2.68 2 6
NPF 121426 1.46 5 3
NPLP
Total
34509 .52 1 79996 1.18 3 92567 1.11 3
Source: Lawoti (2008)
Note: NC=Nepali Congress; CPN-UML= Communist Party of Nepal- United Marxist-Leninist; CPN-ML: Communist Party of Nepal- Marxist-Leninist; NDP-T
= National Democratic Party –Thapa; NDP-C: National Democratic Party – Chand; NDP = National Democratic Party; NGP = Nepal Goodwill Party; NWPP =
Nepal Workers Peasant Party; UPFN = United People’s Front Nepal; CPN-D= Communist Party of Nepal – Democratic; NPF= National People’s Front; NPLP =
National People’s Liberation Party
124

Culture of Impunity
Nepal witnessed widespread abuse of power and corruption after 1990s. In most instances, the
power abuse went unchecked. It fuelled a vicious cycle of power abuse. Centralization
contributed to the process because it undermined horizontal accountability mechanisms.
Excessive power concentration in the executive in Nepal rendered most other central agencies
like the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) and the Election
Commission weak. The central constitutional commissions were also not independent because
the executive influenced them through the nomination, budgetary and personnel staffing
process. These non executive central agencies could not check the abuse of power of the
executive. (Lawoti 2007b) Elections were not sufficient to hold leaders accountable in
between the elections. Increase in corruption, politicization of administration, and the failure
to deliver eroded the legitimacy of the democratic regime. Thus centralization contributed to
the crisis of governance in Nepal.
Growth of Maoist Insurgency
Some of the conditions for violent conflict, such as inequality and poverty, had existed in
Nepal prior to 1990. The difference was that continuing centralization even in a democratic
era, ripened the situation for revolt. Freedom allowed people to air their dissatisfaction and to
mobilize for ending real or perceived neglect and discrimination. In a context of growing
inequality, continuing exclusion, governance crises and the erosion of legitimacy of the
democratic regime, the Maoists came forward with a trenchant criticism of the parliamentary
democratic system and made radical promises to address the problems faced by different
segments of the society. The alienation among the rural people was such that they were
susceptible to the promises of radical transformation. The Maoists initiated actions against
exploitations and inequalities, which initially endeared them to large section of the
population.
The centralized polity in Nepal worked to push the Maoists toward insurgency by not
providing them space to operate even thought they had participated in the first parliamentary
and local elections. The majoritarian and centralized polity gave no meaningful space to the
opposition, as power was mostly concentrated in the cabinet and whoever controlled it
enjoyed most state power. The parliament and its committees were powerless and ineffective
so the opposition parties were practically powerless except to raise issues.
The situation was further aggravated by the blatant abuse of the state’s coercive power by the
ruling party for partisan purpose. Following political differences between the Maoist’s
political organization, the United People’s Front Nepal (UPFN) and the local cadres of the
ruling Nepali Congress, the Center resorted to violent repression of the Maoists in their local
strongholds. Before the outbreak of the ‘Peoples War’ in 1996, the Nepali Congress
government jailed and tortured activists and leaders of the UPFN in the districts of Rolpa
and Rukum, including elected officials of the UPFN controlled district development
committees were targeted . The abuse of power by the central authority, which controlled the
police and administration, was designed to strengthen the Nepali Congress, but ended up
pushing the Maoists into the insurgency (INSEC 1999; Prachanda 1999).
This blatantly partisan use of force could take place because of the unitary and centralized
structure of the state. If there had been a federal structure, or if the police force had been
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under the district governments, the extensive one-way abuse of power by the center would not
have been possible because the Maoists controlled the district government in Rolpa, while the
Nepali Congress controlled the center at the time.
The irony of Nepali centralization was that the state had a very weak reach beyond the district
and sub district centers. This allowed the Maoists to establish themselves easily in the rural
areas because no effective state agencies were present to resist them. When the people saw
the police and other agencies like the banks and agricultural extension services leaving the
rural areas due to the Maoist threat, they further lost faith in the government. Even the people
who opposed the Maoist ideology did not dare resist publicly because the state could not
protect them.
The growth of Maoist power in the more neglected regions also supports the thesis that
alienation is a factor in the Maoist expansion. The mid west, the hot bed of the insurgency, is
one of the most neglected and isolated regions. Likewise, politically excluded groups like the
women, indigenous nationalities, and Dalit have been found to support the insurgency in large
numbers (Lawoti 2003c). Public opinion surveys in 1999 and 2001 illustrate the alienation.
In 1999 a survey showed that ordinary people did not consider the Maoists to be one of the
top three problems faced by Nepal (Himal Association 2001; Sharma and Sen 2056 v.s). This
was at a time when political leaders, intelligentsia, and journalists were crying themselves
hoarse against the rebels. Evidently, the people were less critical of the insurgency that the
elite labeled as a major problem. v
Restructuring the State
Federalism
The Interim Constitution (2007) has made a commitment to establish federalism but it has not
specified the type of federalism. Some members belonging to the dominant groups have
advanced arguments for administrative federalism while ethnic groups are demanding ethnic
federalism to provide them with autonomy. If the aim of federalism in Nepal is to promote
equality and justice among ethnic and caste groups, then ethnic federalism is necessary. The
objective of federalism in multiethnic societies is to empower groups that are a minority in the
center by making them a plurality or a majority in the regions. This will empower many
groups instead of only one that controls the center. Administrative federalism will fail to do
that. This is illustrated in Pitamber Sharma’s (2007) model for administrative federalism.
Despite the claim of being non-ethnic, the CHHE, the author’s ethnic group, will continue to
dominate at the center as well as in all the six regions he has proposed (see table 2). If that or
a similar model were to be adopted, the hegemony of the CHHE will continue even in “new”
Nepal. This administrative model divides groups that could have been grouped together in a
region. It prevents groups like the Limbu, Rai, Tharu, Maithili speakers, Gurung, Newar,
Tamang and others from forming a plural group in the regions of their concentration. To be
sure, Sharma has proposed districts within regions where different groups will have plurality
of population. vi However, it does not guarantee autonomy to ethnic groups, as the
constitutional determined power separation in federalism is between center and regions and
the districts will be largely dependent upon power devolved by the regions. Since all the
regions will be dominated by the CHHE, they will influence regional policies and effectively
influence the power awarded to the districts as well.
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If ethnic autonomy is denied, Nepal will most probably encounter ethnic conflicts. In
addition to the armed Madhesi groups, indigenous groups like the Rai, Limbu, and Tharus
have established militias and ,armies. In fact, the Limbus have begun to effectively practice
ethnic federalism as various Limbu groups have begun to collect taxes, administer the region
with militias, maintain armies, and maintain communication outlets like the FM and
newspapers Some Madhesi and Limbu groups have declared independence as well (Pun
2008). vii Ethnic autonomy if granted before the autonomy movements rigidify into violent
secessionist movement can arrest likely conflict.
Table 2: CHHE’s Hegemonic domination in Sharma’s Federal Model
Region / Ethnic Largest Second Largest Third Largest Fourth Largest
Group
Group Group
Group
Group
Nepal CHHE Magar
Tharu
Tamang
7,033,220 1,622,421 1,533,879 1,282,304
East CHHE Yadav
Tharu
Muslim
648,097 458,995
261,197 212,410
Mid CHHE Tamang
Yadav
Muslim
1,039,459 849,945
458,995 450,087
West CHHE Magar
Gurung Tharu
1,721,923 770,603
359,234 290,600
Far West CHHE Tharu
Kami
Muslim
2,304,156 776,993
366,065 104,961
Karnali CHHE Sherpa
Kami
Gurung
115,414 9,720
7,819
5,168
Capital CHHE Newar
Tamang Magar
621,284 582,370
147,165 50,556
Note: Ethnic population in the regions calculated from Gurung et al. (2006); federal map is
from Sharma (2007).
The Madhesi parties like the MPRF (Madehsi People’s Rights Forum), TMDP (Tarai-Madhes
Democratic Party) and NGP have begun to demand one Madhesh region. This demand is
helpful in bringing a larger group in the Madhesi fold but it is not clear whether it will allow
the Madhesi to become the largest group in the proposed region. If the Tarai districts which
have an overwhelming number of hill migrants and Tarai indigenous groups, such as those in
the far east (Jhapa, Sunsari etc.) and far west (Kanchanpur, Kailai, Bardiya etc.)as well as
some in central inner Tarai districts like Chitwan are included in a single province, the
Madhesi population within the region will be diluted. As Madhesi votes are divided among
the splintered Madhesi parties as well as mainstream parties, and hill migrants rarely vote for
the Madhesi parties, the Madhesi parties could end up losing elections in a region comprising
all the tarai districts. .
Federalism is the most important institutional form for including various ethnic and caste
groups but no single type of federalism will be able to address the aspirations of autonomy of
different ethnic groups of varying size, territorial distribution, aspirations, and mobilizational
evolution. Territorially concentrated groups like the Newar, Limbu, Gurung, Maithali,
Abadhi speaking communities and others would benefit from territorial based autonomy.
127

However, there are other groups which are spread across the country and do not form majority
or plurality in any territory. Such groups could benefit from non-territorial autonomy. With
regard to smaller groups or ethnic groups which are settled in the regions of other groups, they
could be provided autonomy at local levels.
Devolving power to the regions, however, is not sufficient. Power should be devolved to
local governments as well. Unlike in the past, extensive devolution should be carried out that
devolve not only administrative responsibilities but political and fiscal powers as well. On
the other hand, empowerment of local governments alone may not be sufficient to empower
the people. Mechanisms to make the local governments accountable to the local people
should be devised, beyond the electoral method. Promoting transparency could be one route.
Providing political space to multiple agents like NGOs, local communities, and even the
central state (if it engages in activities to promote accountability and empower local people)
would empower local people and promote accountability as different agents check and
balance each other at the local level (Tendler 1997).
Upper House of Nationalities
A bicameral chamber is an essential part of a federal system. The Upper House brings
together the regions and it can effectively become the House of Nationalities. However, a
powerful Upper House is necessary to negate the potential centrifugal tendencies of the
regions. The Upper House should be made nearly as powerful as the Lower House. It should
have veto power on matters that affect the regions, such as cultural issues and center and
region relations. If the Upper House does not have sufficient power the regional groups
would have no incentives to come to the center that does not address their concerns.
The Upper House should over represent smaller groups and regions to counter the domination
of the larger regions and groups that have more influence in the Lower House which is elected
on the basis of population. The Upper House should have power to screen appointees to the
various constitutional commissions, judiciary, top security personnel, and executive
appointees. It is better suited for such purpose as it is a permanent institution. The Upper
House should also be given a role in supervising the army. It will reduce the executive’s
monopoly of the army. viii It will provide a check to the possibilities of the abuse of an armed
institution, which could lead to the breakdown of democracy.
Constitutional Protection of Minorities
No country can aspire to be democratic without protecting minority rights. At best, it could
become an electoral democracy. The protection of minority rights is even more important in
Nepal because all national/ethnic and caste groups are minorities. Further, despite the
categorization of different groups into CHHE, indigenous nationalities, Madhesi and Dalit,
there are many subgroups within these broad categories.
The largest national/ethnic and caste group, CHHE, has been dominating the country but in an
electoral democracy the tide could turn if others unite against it. Thus, it is in the interest of
the CHHE to protect minority rights, lest a coalition of the disadvantaged groups (Madhesi,
indigenous nationalities, and Dalit), who collectively are more than two thirds of the
population, should threaten its rights. In this regard, the abolishment of the monarchy in 2008
and the declaration of the 2006 House of Representatives (HOR) to make the Nepali state
128

secular is a progressive step. Some Hindu organizations and individuals have objected to the
HOR declarations saying that the people should be allowed to follow their traditions. Making
the state secular does not hinder citizens from following any religion or traditions. Further, as
the largest religion in the country, the domination of Hindu religion in everyday life would
continue. Such societal domination perpetuated through informal institutions, however,
should be prevented from becoming a threat to other religious groups.
A three languages policy - a local language, a country wide medium language, and an
international language - should be adopted to promote equality among native languages.
Likewise, cultures of various groups should be protected and promoted. This is very salient
for small minority groups who are losing important aspects of their cultural heritage due to
modernization and colonization by larger groups and traditions. To protect cultures and
promote equality at a symbolic level, steps to celebrate festivals of different groups as public
holidays after 2006 change are positive. Prominent persons from different groups should be
declared national heroes as well. The ‘nationalism’ promoted by the state should be made
inclusive and school texts should celebrate multiculturalism and not carry derogatory
stereotypes of minorities.
Mixed Electoral Method
The FPTP method creates disproportionality whereas a pure PR method facilitates the
domination of top leaders of the parties. Thus an electoral method that employs both the
FPTP and PR methods, with an aim of reducing disproportionality and maintaining the
accountability dimension, like in Germany, would be more desirable. In the proposed mixed
method, the first half of the members should be elected on the FPTP method. During the
elections, the voters also have the right to vote for a party of their choice. The second half of
the seats should be distributed based on the votes received by the political parties, aimed with
reducing the dis-proportionality of the FPTP method. For example if a party A gets 40
percent of votes but 60 percents of seats (which is 30 percent of the total seats) under the
FPTP method, then it should be awarded only 20 percent of seats (10 percent of the total
seats) in the second round under the PR. Table 3 illustrates the method that results in a
proportional distribution of seats.
This proposal is different from the mixed method employed in the Constituent Assembly
elections in two ways. First, the end result of this method is proportional whereas the CA
produced some disproportioanlity. For instance, with around 29 percent of votes, the Maoist
won around 38 percent of seats through the FPTP and PR method. Second, this model will
follow the party list principle strictly to nominate candidates under PR. Representatives
should be elected based on their ranking in the party list. If this rule is not followed, then the
party leaders could abuse the system to nominate their wives, family members and loyalists
who are originally put in lower rank in the list, as occurred during the CA election.
Table 3: Proportionality FPTP and PR methods
Parties Vote % FPTP: 100 seats PR: 100 seats Total Seats
A 40 60 20 80 (40%)
B 30 25 35 60 (30%)
C 20 10 30 40 (20%)
D 10 5 15 20 (10%)
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The threshold for PR election should be minimal as in the CA to facilitate the election
of ethnic members from small ethnic parties. If ethnic oriented parties are not elected, then
ethnic issues may not be adequately articulated in the Parliament because marginalized group
members aligned with mainstream political parties may not raise the issues effectively. They
might be constrained from raising group issues by party agenda or an insensitive CHHE
leadership. It was the NGP that raised the Madhesi issues loudly and clearly in the house in
the 1990s and not Madhesi representative from the mainstream political parties, who only
took up the cudgels for the Madhesi cause later.
Inclusive Mechanisms & Affirmative Policies
A federal system and proportionate electoral method may not be able to ensure the
representation of some groups like Dalit, women, and other marginalized groups. Mainstream
political leaders often excuse themselves for not nominating members of these communities
by saying that they do not have capable people. Notwithstanding that such attitudes are racist
the salient issue is that such excuses are still used to avoid nominating candidates from these
communities. It is a fact that only one Dalit out of 615 members in the three parliaments in
the nineties clearly demonstrates the prejudiced attitude and behavior of the CHHE
leadership. Reservations for the marginalized national/ethnic and caste groups and quotas for
women should be clearly provided in public offices, educational institutions, administration
(as in India), and public contracting (as in the US). Reservations are necessary but not
sufficient. Other inclusive institutions and policies should be also promoted.
In focusing on inequality, along with social injustices, class inequality is equally, if not more,
essential to address in a “new” Nepal. It was class inequality and poverty that fuelled the
Maoist insurgency. I propose power sharing in economic sector policy, and one time resource
redistribution to reduce inequality and promote economic development.An attractive
framework is “Democratic corporatism” which ensures the representation of different classes
in economic governance and helps in reducing inequality by extending social welfare and
promoting social justice. A mechanism is developed whereby representatives of labor,
business and the state sit together to decide on economic matters such as the minimum wage
and benefits. The peak organizations of labor and business represent their groups in the
negotiations. ix Democratic corporatism is common in non-English speaking democracies like
Norway, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany
(Lijphart 1999). New democracies like South Africa have also established corporatist
mechanism. Corporatist mechanism should be developed in Nepal so that the working class
has a more effective voice in matters that affect them. x Also, a corporatist mechanism could
arrest the unhealthy radicalization of labor unions due to the competition among partisan
unions that has forced some industries to close down. The challenge in Nepal, where most
political parties have sister labor organizations and few if any independent labor organizations
exist, would be to organize a peak organization that is relatively non-party based.
The working class in Nepal, however, is only a small fraction of the labor force, more
important, it is not the poorest group. It is the landless, near landless peasant or small farmers
who make up the majority of the poor. It is the peasants in Nepal as elsewhere in developing
countries who are the mass base of insurgencies and rebellions. A mechanism to represent
the peasants in governance should be devised so that their needs and aspirations are heard and
130

addressed by the government. The representatives of the peasants’ peak organization could sit
with the government representatives periodically to discuss issues that affect the peasants.
Rich peasants would in all likelihood dominate these organizations, as demonstrated in the
composition of the peasant sister organizations of various political parties. To circumvent
this, the peasant organization should be elected by the poor farmers. Land holding size could
be made a criterion for eligibility to vote and stand for elections in the peasant organizations.
To ensure representation of different interests within smaller farmers, sub associations of
different farming groups could be formed, such as rice growers, wheat farmers, sugar cane
farmers, etc. Alternately, sub-association could be formed based on the basis of geographic
divisions, like the mountain, hill and Tarai.
Land Reforms
Land reform could be a policy tool that could make available resources to the vast numbers of
landless or smallholder farmers for bettering their lives. Land reforms could also contribute
to addressing food security and the economic development of the country. Small holder
farmers have been found to be more productive than large farmers in developing countries
(Binswanger and Elgin 1998). Small landholders have an interest in raising productivity
because they directly benefit from it whereas a farm laborer working on a large farm does not
as s/he will not benefit from the increased output. Land reforms could also yield other indirect
benefits. It could breakdown the extensive control of the landless and smallholder peasants
by landlords (patron-client) through tenancy, credit etc and liberate the poor and oppressed
peasants and transform them into fuller citizens who can practice their democratic rights with
lesser constraints.
Earlier, several land related policies have been implemented in Nepal. The abolition of
jamindari in the fifties was a positive aspect as it ended very large land holdings. However, it
also enabled some with jagir land given temporarily as compensation for services to the state
but still owned by the state, to claim it as personal property. The land reform during the three
decade Panchayat period had mixed consequences. It distributed some land to the landless
but took away communal land from the indigenous peoples and gave land to the hill people in
the Tarai. Writing about the ethnic Limbu and the elimination of their communal land
ownership system called Kipat, Caplan (2001) pointed out that it not only contributed to the
Limbu’s economic marginalization but contributed to their loss of culture and identity as
Limbu identity and lifestyle were closely related to their ancestral communal landholdings.
Likewise, Guneratne (2000) has argued that the land colonization policy in the Tarai benefited
the hill migrants but had severe consequences for indigenous Tharu and other Madhesi. The
Tharu’s loss of control over their traditional land turned many into bonded laborers.
The nationalization of forests in the late fifties, a form of redistribution of land, had disastrous
consequences. By nationalizing private and communally held forests, the government
claimed to transfer the forests to all citizens but by making the forests open access resources
from restricted resources, the nationalization contributed to massive deforestation. The large
scale deforestation forced the government to transfer the resources to forest user communities
from the seventies onward. Community forestry has been widely cited as successful in regreening
the hills (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001). But it did not result in the restitution of the
traditional communal lands to the indigenous people. The community forests are often
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controlled by local elite (Harper and Tarnowski 2003), and the combined process of
nationalization and community forestry more likely realigned control over resources to the
CHHEM. Future land reforms policies should enable the return of traditional lands to the
indigenous peoples who had maintained them in sustainable ways.
Another form of land reform that could spell disaster is the collectivization of land. In China,
for instance, around 30 million people died of hunger after collectivization of land because
production went down and distribution failed. 10 million farmers died in the USSR when
Stalin collectivized the farms. On the other hand, in Vietnam and China production increased
in the agricultural sector only after the collectivization system was reformed (The World Bank
2007). A recent study by Marie Lecomte-Tilouine, titled, “Political Change and Cultural
Revolution in a Maoist Model Village” suggests that the Maoist experiments in
collectivization were not successful in producing enough food for the members of the groups
(Lecomte-Tilouine Forthcoming).
In the Nepali context, with regard to land redistribution, critics might argue that there is not
much land to redistribute as most land holdings are small and the government has already
distributed the fertile land in the Tarai. Table 3 shows that 18.7 percent of landholdings in
1991 were larger than 4 hectares and owned by 2.51 percent of households . If these lands
were to be redistributed to the landless or those with less than 1 hectare, it could meet the food
needs of the poor and contribute in promoting economic development by increasing
agricultural productivity. Land reforms have occurred successfully where land holdings were
small as in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea (Griffin, Khan, and Ickowitz 2002).
Table 4: Distribution of Household (HH) and Area owned (in per cent)
Size of holding 1961 1971 1981 1991
HH Area HH Area HH Area HH Area
Landless 1.43 0 0.80 0 0.37 0 1.17 0
Less than 1.0 hectare 73.89 24.03 76.77 27.20 66.32 17.33 68.63 30.5
1-4 hectare 19.56 35.68 18.39 39.29 28.05 46.13 27.68 50.8
More than 4 hectare 5.13 41.42 4.03 33.74 5.35 36.54 2.51 18.7
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Source: Karki (2001)
In Nepal the real challenge in implementing successful redistributive land reform is likely to
be the political will as well as administrative capability. Land reforms, have often succeded,
when states employed coercion - under occupation in Japan or under an authoritarian regime
in Taiwan, South Korea and Peru. In democratic polities, the resource rich large land owners
could deploy a host of strategies to undermine land reforms. They have passed the title of
lands to proxy owners -family and friends. Also, large landholders have challenged the policy
in the court as violative of property rights, an important tenet of liberal democracy. Even
where governments have mustered political will, they face the challenge of administrative
capability. A capable and non-corrupt bureaucracy is essential to implement the land reforms.
It is questionable whether Nepali bureaucracy can implement redistributive land reforms, as
many high level bureaucrats and their families own significant landholdings. Also there is the
post conflict experience of land reform policies being abused by the ruling political parties to
distribute land to their cadres and not to the poor as happened in Zimbabwe and Nicaragua.
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The other option could be market based land reform as promoted in some countries since the
eighties. The principle is to provide incentives for big landowners to sell their land and
provide credit and other support to the poor to enable them to purchase land at market prices.
The buyers are often required to contribute some amount from their own pocket. The
governments could levy progressive taxes to larger land holding so that large landholders are
compelled to sell their land. The progressive tax could also contain the land value at its
productive price (and check land speculation) The World Bank has provided substantial
funds for such programs in various Latin American countries like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico
and in South Africa.
Market based land reforms have worked in some countries and not in others. In Colombia,
the reforms became more effective when implemented in a decentralized manner compared to
when implemented centrally. Also, land reform works better (in terms of increasing
productivity) if land is given to people who are familiar with farming. From the productivity
angle, making land available to the tiller first should be the preferred option. In Nepal, in
addition to progressive tax on larger landholding, tax could be levied on even smaller farm
landholdings that are not tilled by the owner itself. It could make more land available in the
market.
The advantage of market based land reform is that it will not produce as much resistance as
redistributive land reforms. In addition, market based land reform could contribute in
industrialization by making capital available for investment from the large landholders after
they sell their land. Some critics have pointed out that the poorest of the poor would not be
able to purchase land if they have to pay a portion of the land cost. In that case, an exception
could be made and complete credit made available to the poorest, to address this problem..
Promoting Accountability
Horizontal accountability mechanisms should be made effective to hold political leaders and
the powerful accountable in between the elections. Constitutional commissions and central
agencies as well as non-executive branches of the government should be empowered and
made independent to make them more effective. Parliament can be made more effective by
strengthening its committees and awarding more committee chairpersons to the opposition, as
in Germany (Schmidt 2003). Distribution of chairpersonship of committees based on
proportional representation in the Parliament, could give more power to the opposition in the
Parliament. Judicial review process can be strengthened to limit authoritarian tendencies of
the executive by establishing a constitutional court, as discussed below.
Empowerment and independence of central agencies would not only facilitate checking power
abuse by the executive but the various agencies could also check power abuse by each other.
The first step is to make different agencies powerful in their respective jurisdiction. For
instance, the Commission of Investigation against Abuse of Authority (CIAA) should be
empowered to prosecute anyone, including the head of the executive. However, empowering
the agencies alone may not be enough, especially if the agencies are under the influence of the
executive. To promote independence, the executive alone should not have the prerogative to
nominate commissioners heading the central agencies. Other branches of government like the
Parliament and judiciary should have a role in the nomination and approval process.
133

Likewise, the parliament could decide on the allocation of budget and the agencies themselves
could recruit administrative personnel.
In principle the presidential system is the political structure that separates power
among different branches of government and hence could promote accountability. In
practice, the presidential system in many developing countries has concentrated power in the
person of the president instead of separating power (O'Donnell 1996). Except for the USA,
practically all presidential systems have faced major crises (Linz 1996; Riggs 1992) unlike
parliamentary system, which has mixed record. Presidents have often undermined the
authority of the parliament and judiciary and ruled in semi authoritarian ways. In Nepal, the
major proponent of the presidential system, the Maoists, seemed to view it as a tool to
establish a powerful executive.
Constitutional Court and Judicial Review
A federal system would invite a lot of constitutional debates about various constitutional
articles that deal with rights between the centre and regions, articles that protect the rights of
minorities, and articles that empower central constitutional commissions. The articles could
come under debate and scrutiny requiring to be interpreted. This necessitates a judicial
review process. Nepal’s 1990 Constuitution provided for judicial review or interpretation.and
there were some significant judicial interventions. However, there were some major problems
as well.
A major problem of the judicial system has been criticism regarding the Court’s ideological,
ethnic, and gender biases. In the 1990s, the then dominant left political party in Parliament,
the CPN-UML found itself disadvantaged by the rulings of the Supreme Court. When the
Prime Minister belonging to the UML dissolved the Parliament, the Court ruled against it
despite there being a precedent. Not surprisingly, the CPN-UML perceived the Court as made
up of social elite that favored the centrist Nepali Congress.
Even more marked was the bias in the Court rulings against the marginalized groups.
Between 1990 and 2002, the Supreme Court’s rulings on cultural issues that conflicted with
the values and interests of the CHHEM, went against the interests of the marginalized groups.
In the Public Service Commission controversy, the Supreme Court ruled that Khas-Nepali
language ought to be language of the public service examination. Non-native Nepali speakers
(indigenous peoples and the ‘madhesi’ peoples) were disadvantaged in the competition with
the native speakers. As a consequence, the gap between the native speakers and others
continued to rise in the administration in the 1990s (Lawoti 2008). Likewise, the Supreme
Court ruled that local governments could not introduce local native languages as the second
language of governance even though the Local Self Governance Act, 1999 permitted it. Also,
the Court’s ruling prohibited distribution of citizenship certificates to Madhesi and others who
did not posses them. Finally, in the case of women, the Court’s rulings, though in some
instances progressive, generally, did not promote equal rights between men and women.
While some of these decisions were based on the discriminatory articles of the 1990
Constitution, others were influenced by the values of the justices, who were overwhelmingly
male Bahun (hill Brahmin). As the American experience shows, constitutional articles may
be interpreted differently by people with different values in different periods. The same
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Constitutional articles interpreted to discriminate against blacks prior to the civil rights
movement in the 1960s, were subsequently interpreted differently to extend political rights
and civil liberties.
Consequently, even after the Constitution is made inclusive and progressive, the CHHEM
would continue to dominate the Supreme Court and interpret the Constitutional articles based
on values that favor the Hindu religion, Khas-Nepali language, and hill nationalism. These
problems can be addressed by the establishment of a Constitutional Court, whose sole job is
to interpret the Constitution. It will additionally free the judicial system to look at regular
litigations. As it will be newly constituted, it can be made inclusive in terms of ideology,
ethnicity and gender. A proportionately constituted Constitutional Court has less chance of
favoring one group consistently. Proportionality of the Constitutional Court could be
facilitated by nomination of justices from the regions. The East European countries have had
successful experience with the Constitutional Court system. It has contributed in the
consolidation of democracies in some of the countries by restricting the abuse of power by the
executive (Schwartz 1999)..
Towards Democratic Inclusion and Accountability
For the poor and marginalized groups in Nepal, a functioning democracy may give them more
space to be heard, and to make the most of mobilizing the numbers they have. The politicians
will not be able to ignore the poor, if they vote in higher number as in India, because the
politicians need votes to win in free and fair elections. However, for electoral politics to work
for the poor, democracy should function properly. Any type of democracy will not function
in multicultural societies.
Majoritarian democracy failed in Nepal because it not only excluded different groups
but also fostered power abuse. In this chapter I have argued that power should be distributed
among different agencies, institutions, groups, actors and sectors to promote equality,
inclusion and accountability.. In addition to managing conflict and promoting inclusion and
accountability, power distribution in the historically centralized polity will contribute in the
consolidation of democracy as well.
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i In four months from January 15 to May 14, 2007, 561 mobile teams distributed 2,615,615 citizenship
certificates. Data obtained from Citizenship Section, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of Nepal.
ii The Dalit and indigenous nationalities are around 15 and 37 percent of the population respectively, the
Madhesi 18 to 32 percent if you add the Tarai’s Dalit, indigenous nationalities and. Muslims to the category of
Madhes. Collectively the marginalized groups are more than two-third of the population (Bhattachan 2003a).
iii This section draws on Lawoti (2007b).
iv Table 1 shows the two largest political parties would have received lesser seats under PR in all three
parliamentary elections after 1990. The rest of the parties would have received more seats in 90 percent of cases
under a PR system.
v Later opinion polls (Nepali Times 2002) have shown that the people began to blame the Maoists for the crises
in the country. The attitude change came after the Maoists began destruction of development infrastructures,
such as schools, health posts, telephone transmission towers, and VDC offices. On October, 2003 Prachanda,
the supreme Maoist leader, issued a statement saying that the politburo meeting of the party decided to stop the
destruction of development infrastructures. The destruction, however, did not completely stop.
vi For reasons not clear to the author, Sharma does not provide calculation of distribution of ethnic groups in
regions. In a model for federalism, that should have been the main task.
vii Interviews with activists and journalists in summer 2008 and documents provided by them.
viii In a parliamentary system, the executive will represent the Lower House’s interest as it is elected from it.
ix Following Schmitter (1982), Lijphart identifies (1999, 172) democratic corporatism with an interest group
system where “(1) interest groups are relatively large in size and relatively small in numbers, and (2) they are
further consolidated in national peak organizations…(3) regular consultation by the leaders of these peak
organizations, especially those representing labor and management, both with each other and with government
representatives to (4) arrive at comprehensive agreements that are binding on all three partners in the
negotiations.”
x Corporatist mechanisms have been employed by non-democratic regime to broaden support and legitimize their
rule, for example in Latin America. In Nepal the Panchayat system also mobilized workers, peasants, women,
and youth etc. to broaden support base. This history might make democrats a bit wary of corporatism. However,
as the non-English speaking European democracies have demonstrated, corporatism can become an effective
mechanism in reducing inequality and extending welfare and social justice in democracies. Corporatism in
autocracy could be problematic as it lengthened the regime’s rule while it is desirable in democracies because it
facilitates representation of lower classes in governance.
138

The Challenge of National Minority Question in Pakistan
Shahid Fiaz
Introduction
Pakistan, as a state, has survived for over sixty years but the aspirations of the people of
Pakistan to live in a free, democratic and peaceful society with a degree of material
security have remained unfulfilled. The people of Pakistan have been haunted by a
peculiar insecurity, resulting from the lingering uncertainty about whether their country
will survive as a state or not 1 . The secession of its eastern wing and with 56 percent of
the population in 1971 has left scars on the psyche of the first generation Pakistanis. But
no lessons seemed to have been learnt from the break up of the country. Successive
governments, politicians, the mainstream press and orthodox academics tend to treat the
questions of ‘centrifugalism’ as a problem of regionalism.
The official ideology of the state has never accepted the diversity of languages and
cultures in Pakistani society and has pushed a policy of assimilation rather than
integration. The state has persistently refused to recognize the fact that the federating
regions are not mere chunks of territories but areas inhibited by people who have
different languages, cultures, history and even states of their own till the middle of the
twentieth century. The official denial of the identities of diverse groups has contributed to
the deterioration of inter-groups relations, weakened social cohesiveness and undermined
the state’s capacity to forge security and sustain development. The resurgent forces of
ethno nationalism are questioning the basis of the nation-state and the myth of national
homogeneity is being exploded by the diversity of constituent national minorities.
The demands of ethnic nationalism in Pakistan range from sovereignty, provincial rights,
and regional autonomy to self-determination in which the competing elites of smaller
ethnic groups have raised concerns against the domination of the ruling class of Punjab.
The current revival of ethno nationalism and the national minority question in the three
provinces of Pakistan is deeply rooted in the history of the country and is directly
connected with the post colonial demands of ethnic groups which struggled against the
oppression of ruling class in the 1960’s and 70’s. Provincial grievances largely originate
from discriminatory arrangements for allocation of financial resources, sharing of
irrigation water, quota in government jobs, inter-provincial migration and language and
cultural oppression by the center in the name of national cultural and national language. 2
The protection and promotion of regional languages was first demanded by Bengalis of
East Pakistan and since then it has been a constant issue in the nationalist discourse.
Ethno-nationalist groups have resisted the imposition of Urdu as the national language,
which at the time was spoken by only 5.7% of the total population of the country. The
neglect of the cultural heritage of the smaller nationalities in the construction of what is
seen as a ‘national’ Pakistani culture is an issue still contested by the national minorities.
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The in-migration of labor force from N.W.F.P and Punjab as well as the influx of
refugees in Sindh and Baluchistan, remain sources of resentment among the local
populations of the two provinces who fear changes in the demographic balance and
increasing pressure on the meager resources of the provinces.
Ethnic diversity and the policy of assimilation
The 1973 Constitution affirmed the federal character of the Pakistani state with four
federating units, namely Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P) and
Baluchistan along with some Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Urdu is the national
language. Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi and a few other languages are spoken in
different parts of Pakistan but the medium of instructions in government schools is Urdu
with the exception of Sindhi. The difficulty in statistically determining the linguistic
profile of the population is complicated by the fact that in the 1981 census, no direct
question was asked about the mother tongue of individuals. However, a question was
asked about languages spoken in the household.
Table 1 - Percentage of population by mother tongue
Census
year
Urdu Punjabi Sindhi Pashto Balochi Saraiki Others
1981 7.60 48.17 11.77 13.15 4.22 9.84 5.24
1998 7.57 44.15 14.10 15.42 3.57 10.53 4.66
Source: 1998 Census Report of Pakistan, Population Census Organization, Government of Pakistan
The federating units or provinces are inhabited by several major and minor ethno-national
and cultural groups, making Pakistan an exceptionally heterogeneous society. According
to the 1998 Census Report, the present state of Pakistan is inhibited by Punjabis,
Pashtuns, Sindhis, Balochi, Saraikis, Gilgitis, Baltistanis, and Mohajirs. It should be
noted that these ethnic groups are spread across provincial geographical boundaries.
Moreover, the in-migration of Pashtuns and Punjabis to Baluchistan and Sindh has
somewhat altered the demographic balance of the two provinces. The Afghan refugees,
settled in Baluchistan and Sindh, with the tacit support of the government, are deeply
resented by the local populations of the two provinces.
Pakistan: Ideological Origins and Political Discontent
The origin of identity politics was rooted in the basic idea of a separate homeland for the
Indian Muslims that resulted in the partition of India in August 1947, and the creation of
two states. The concept was based on a constructed common identity of all Muslims
transcending other identities. The well-known Pakistani historian, Ishtiaq Hussain
Qureshi while quoting Jinnah on the identity question remarked: “The Quaid-e-Azam
could have argued that the areas which were to constitute Pakistan had a different history
during significantly long period of time and had characteristics which distinguished them
from the other people of the sub-continent. But these arguments never occurred to his
mind. The only argument that he advanced was that Muslims were different because they
were Muslims, not because they were Bengalis, or Sindhis, or Punjabis and or Pathans,
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ut simply because they were Muslims. And what in his view made the Muslim
different? The basis of the difference was the fact that their entire way of life is founded
in the truth, the doctrine and the teachings of Islam 3 ”. Jinnah and the Muslim League,
definitely had a geography for separate homeland in mind 4 , but found it difficult to argue
for its creation on a distinct geographic basis as it was impossible to create a geographical
and cultural connection between the western and the eastern parts of the imagined
country and the nation. Consequently, the construction of an ideology, which emphasized
the two-nation theory – Muslims and Hindus are two separate nations and cannot live
together. The ideology served to distinguish them from the majority ‘others’ and created
a unity between the two parts where the Muslims were in majority. .
The concept was vague and complicated by the fact that the majority of the Muslims who
lived in the areas that eventually constituted the state of Pakistan had their own distinct
linguistic, cultural and ethnic identity. Also, in the early twentieth century, religious and
ethnic identities were already highly politicized in Northern India. The anti-colonial
movement in the 1930’s and 40’s witnessed the emergence of competing nationalist,
religious and ethnic interests. These competing ‘nationalists movements’ during the
colonial period worked at two levels – one, to wage a freedom struggle against the
foreign rule, and two, to build a cohesive ‘national identity’ 5 . However, the All India
Muslim League, that popularized the idea of a separate homeland for Muslims of India, at
one point, was able to shape a common identity of all Muslims transcending their other
identities i.e., ethnic, linguistic, cultural and territorial.
In political terms one would hold that “identities are chosen; that is, out of an infinite
range of possible cultural identities that one is selected as the political identity which it is
believed offers the greatest scope of political success”. 6 (David Taylor and Malcolm
Yapp “Political identity in South Asia”:1979:x) At the same time, it is important to
recognize that while certain parameters may objectively create a social group – or an
ethnic group – this does not automatically translate into a politically active identity 7 .
While Muslims of India largely had accepted an identity transcending their other
identities there were vast concerns raised by the then contenting regional elites of the
provinces. Bengalis, Punjabis, Pathans, Sindhis and Balochi. The feared that in the future
state their primary identities might get culturally assimilated and political undermined.
Therefore, the Lahore Resolution of All India Muslim League of March 23, 1940 had
unequivocally recognized that “the proposed country would be a multiethnic and
multilingual confederation with safeguards for the protection of minorities” 8 . The
resolution declared, “No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the
Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should
be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary. That the areas
in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern
zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent
units shall be autonomous and sovereign…. " 9 . The Lahore Resolution encouraged
otherwise hostile Punjabi, Sindhi and Pashtun elites to consider joining the All India
Muslim League and supporting the idea of Pakistan.
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India was divided into two sovereign states in August 1947. The Muslims of India had
achieved a separate homeland. The leader of the new country Mohammad Ali Jinnah
addressing the Constituent Assembly underlined that Pakistan would be a federal state,
however in successive public meetings in Dacca, Peshawar, Quetta and Sibi (August
1947 to August 1948) his tone and tenor changed entirely. He stressed that “the people of
Pakistan are Muslims and they should get rid of provincialism” 10 . Whereas Jinnah’s
historic address before the Constituent Assembly had asserted a secular basis for the
relationship of the citizen and state, yet, six months later, Jinnah would strongly advise
the Sindh Bar Association to prepare themselves to "sacrifice and die in order to make
Pakistan [a] truly great Islamic State" 11 .
People particularly in East Pakistan and Baluchistan were not enthusiastic about Jinnah’s
vision of one country - one nation and one language. The elite that assumed power in the
new country, was dominated by two groups -mohajirs 12 and Punjabis. Their domination
came to be seen by other regional groups in ethno-national terms. Regional ethnic
balances were also put under huge strain following the massive migration of population
from India to Pakistan. In particular, the concentration of refugees in the urban center of
Sindh sent negative signals, especially as the East Punjab migrants who preferred to settle
in Punjab, were scattered all over the province but, those who migrated from UP, Bihar
and Maharashtra were concentrated in Karachi, Hyderabad and other urban towns of
Sindh. The Sindhi speaking local population saw the massive influx as threatening their
culture and language.
Table 2 - Sindh: Increase in Urban Population
Sindh Province 1951 1961 1972 1981 1998
Total 6,047,748 8,367,065 14,155,909 19,028,666 30,439,893
Rural 4,279,621 5,200,047 8,430,133 10,785,630 15,600,031
Urban 1,768,127 3,167,018 5,725,776 8,243,036 14,839,862
Source: Census Reports of Pakistan
The policy of concentrating the migrant population was construed as a political strategy
devised to create political constituencies for the Urdu speaking elite of the country who
had spearheaded the movement for a separate country but had no political constituency to
contest elections. Most historians argue that despite the opportunism of elite and
regardless of the ethnic imbalances, it should still have been possible for the ruling elite
to follow less exclusive and more encompassing policies at the level of culture, language,
economic development and the exercise of political powers in order to favor an integrated
polity 13 .
Within a fortnight of Pakistan’s creation in August 1947, the central government, under
M.A. Jinnah had toppled the provincial government of North West Frontier Province
following a confrontation with the Provincial Ministry over the status of the Province
following a referendum (July 1947) to determine whether the province would remain a
part of India or become a part of Pakistan. In another show of force by the center, seven
months later, the Chief Minister of Sindh, M.H. Khuhro was dismissed. He had opposed
the Governor General on the separation of Karachi from the province. 14 In 1949, the
Punjab Provincial Legislative Assembly was dissolved and the Governor took over the
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administration 15 . Such measures were forerunners of the authoritarian and centralizing
tendencies of the powerful central elite that enjoyed very little credibility particularly
among the less privileged ethnic groups.
It sowed the seeds for unrest and ethnic resurgence that continues to haunt Pakistan to
date. In the case of the princely state of Kalat, the Khan of Kalat declared independence
on August 15, 1947 but offered to negotiate a special relationship with Pakistan in the
spheres of defense, foreign affairs, and communications. Pakistan’s leaders rejected the
declaration and after nine months of heightened tensions annexed the Kalat forcibly. Its
forcible annexation was followed by military misadventures in the province in 1947,
1958, 1974 and the current on going military operation in the Province.
However, it was the opposition of the Bengalis in East Pakistan to the central elite’s
refusal to integrate the regional elites into the structure of power, that posed the most
serious blow to the survival of the Pakistan state East Pakistan was ethnically a uniform
province which constituted 56.75% of the country’s total population but in terms of its
allocation of quota in the central government it was not given its due share. The first
quota system introduced in 1948 provided for a regional model of recruitment and East-
Pakistan which accounted for more that half the population got a share 42 % which was
well below its demographic strength 16 . Karachi with a population of around one million
in 1951 got a share which was 50% more than its share in the national population. In
addition, the city was given 15% share for potential migrants along with a substantial
portion in the federal bureaucracy located in Karachi. The central government, dominated
by migrants, insisted that Urdu would be the only official language of the country. It was
rejected by the East Pakistan and became a major hurdle in framing of the constitution.
The three constitutions promulgated in 1956, 1962 and 1973 continued to practice the
concentration of power in the unitary central governments. The first two documents did
not even recognize the existence of multi-cultural reality of the country and treated West
Pakistan as one entity in order to compete demographically with the eastern wing of the
country. The effect of this lack of accommodation and direction was clearly shown when
the Muslim League was routed in the 1954 election in East Pakistan by the United Front
– mainly a coalition of the Awami League, and the Krishak Sramik Party, led by two onetime
leaders of Muslim League, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy and Fazlul Haq. The
coalition ran on an autonomist platform. National Awami Party in West Pakistan also
emerged in the 1950’s, which too supported provincial autonomy. The scheduled national
elections were superseded by the Ayub Khan’s martial law in 1958. Finally, in 1970
when national elections did take place, it unleashed a reaction that led to the
dismemberment of the country.
After the break up of Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, it may be
interesting to note, that academics began to forward geographical and cultural arguments
that emphasised (West) Pakistan as a ‘true’ nation-state. The noted jurist and Pakistan
People’s Party parliamentarian, Aitzaz Ehsan in his book The Indus Saga stated, "The
Indus region, comprising the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent (now
Pakistan), has always had its distinct identity-racially, ethnically, linguistically and
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culturally. In the last five thousand years this region has been a part of India politically
for only five hundred years. Pakistan, then, is no 'artificial' state conjured up by the
disaffected Muslim elite of British India 17 ”. To delink the remaining Pakistan from the
Indian subcontinent a new theory was formulated which propounded that West Pakistan
had always been a separate geographical region and the present geography of the country
justifies not its creation but also its independence.
Bhutto Government and National resurgence
Three years, 1969-71, will remain enormously significant in the political history of
Pakistan. In those years a country-wide uprising forced General Ayub Khan to step down,
approximately 500,000 people died in cyclone hit East Pakistan, and the general
elections, the first since the creation of the country, were held on a highly polarized
political agenda. The elections held in 1970 gave a split mandate. East Pakistan gave a
thumping majority to Awami League of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Punjab and Sindh had
overwhelming voted for Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party whereas N.W.F.P and
Baluchistan opted for Pashtun and Baluch nationalist parties. The elections results were
not honored by West Pakistani leaders, pushing Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s led Awami
League to civil disobedience, precipitating ruthless military repression in East-Pakistan
in which three million 18 were killed, and its final denouement, the partition of Pakistan
into two independent sovereign states of Bangladesh (East Pakistan) and Pakistan (West
Pakistan).
The popular expectation was that after the debacle in East-Pakistan the leaders would
have learnt some lessons. Unfortunately, the post 1971 Pakistani state structure was only
marginally different from the one preceding it 19 . The institutional imbalance within the
state remained substantially unchanged despite the assumption of presidential office by
an elected leader backed by a party with bases of support in two of the four remaining
provinces. The civilian government had a perfect opportunity to tilt the institutional
balance away from the non-elected institutions of the state as there was a popular antibureaucratic
sentiment. Moreover, the defeat in East-Pakistan had demoralized the army
and it would have been impossible for the army to interfere at that point in any attempt to
restructure the state institutions.
The National Assembly had approved the state’s Third Constitution on April 10, 1973,
declaring Pakistan to be a Federation, setting up a bicameral legislature at the center
consisting of two houses, the national assembly and the senate with four provincial
assemblies. Despite the fact that the existing state structure remained inclined towards a
concentration of power in the center, its significance lay in it being a consensus document
endorsed by all major political parties including pro-provincials, centrists, and the
religious lobby.
The Bhutto’s years saw a refusal to accommodate the opposition or ethno-linguistic
political parties; the lack of respect for the democratic rights of nationalities continued to
haunt the dream of Pakistani nation even in the democratic era. Bhutto’s confidence,
populist rhetoric and political opportunism once again pushed the country in deeper
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crisis. The brief interlude with democracy did not augur well for the remaining half of the
country 20 .
Also, Bhutto’s political agenda was difficult to digest for the traditional stakeholders in
the power politics. Inter-group tensions grew as members of the lower and middle classes
became disillusioned, industrialists were alienated by the government's nationalization
policies and wealthy landlords were threatened by the land reform program. In 1973, in a
move which was to give a strong provincial dimension to the widening opposition to his
regime, Bhutto dissolved two non Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) provincial governments
in Baluchistan and N.W.F.P. The leadership of the two governments was charged with
anti state activities in collaboration with Kabul and New Delhi. Also, he charged with
conspiracy against the state Khan Abdul Wali Khan, the leader of the National Awami
Party (NAP) which had been one of the coalition partners in the dismissed provincial
assemblies of Baluchistan and N.W.F.P. Subsequently, Bhutto called in the army to crush
a tribal uprising in Baluchistan.
The Baluchistan provincial government was headed by Sardar Attaullah Khan, chief of
the Mengal tribe and a Baluch nationalist. Anayat Allah Baluch, a respected historian on
Baluchistan, argues that central government was unhappy with the nationalist’s
government in Baluchistan because it had introduced a comprehensive programme of
socio-cultural and economic reforms in the province. The nationalists were also close to
the USSR and wanted the Soviet leaders to play more decisive role in region 21 . The
intelligence agencies discovered Soviet-made arms in Iraqi embassy in Islamabad in
1973. The central government alleged that the arms were for a secessionist movement in
Baluchistan. Bhutto dismissed the provincial government and arrested the main leaders
including Sardar Attaullah Megnal, Sardar Khair Buksh Marri, and Mir Gaus Baksh
Bizanjo. In 1973 Baluch students and political cadre of NAP reorganized the Baluch
Liberation Front (BLP) to strive for an independent socialist Baluchistan. According to
one estimate, at the height of liberation struggle, the Pakistan state was spending nearly
one million rupees a day 22 . The insurgency lasted four years before it was brutally put
down. The army used Huey-Cobra gunship helicopters provided by Iran and flown by
Iranian pilots.
Bhutto was able to mobilize domestic support, especially from Punjab and the Punjabi
dominated army. The Baluch had resented the influx of Punjabi settlers, controlling
mines, trade and businesses. The centre was able to generate international support against
the Baluch struggle due to its broad Marxist-Leninist political outlook. The western
powers feared that an independent or autonomous Baluchistan might pave the way for the
Soviet Union to step in to control the coastal waters of the province. There was no
noticeable outside open support to the movement by Pakistan’s neighbors. Afghanistan
had its own internal problems and was seemingly anxious to normalize relations with
Pakistan; India was fearful of further balkanization of the subcontinent after the
independence of Bangladesh, and the Soviet Union did not wish to jeopardize the
leverage it was gaining with Pakistan’s rulers. The Baluch insurgency was protracted and
resulted in the Pakistan army suffering 8,000 to 10,000 casualties, and an untold number
of civilian and guerrilla casualties.
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Meanwhile, the non-Muslim minorities were getting anxious about the state's
increasingly formal identification with Islam. Bhutto was a secular person but adopted
policies to appease religious elements and declared Ahmadiyas 23 non-Muslims. The
civilian interlude failed to make headway in actualizing the democratic political
expression in any meaningful way, leading back to a military takeover. Militarism and
Islam were to be the twin pillars of the Zia regime, a formidable blend in a politically
polarized and increasingly pulverized society 24 . On assuming power, General Zia-ul-Haq
inherited armed secessionist uprising in the largest province, Baluchistan. The unrest
coupled with Afghan war was moving the province towards a precarious position. He
offered amnesty to appease the powerful tribal chiefs, withdrew troops from large parts of
the province and released the jailed leaders of the nationalist parties. The core objective
of the military junta was to gain the favor all anti Bhutto forces. Zia ul Haq won over the
Pashtun leadership such as Khan Abdul Wali Khan but Baluch leaders remained hostile
to the military government. Several meetings were held in Islamabad between military
regime and Baluch leaders in 1977 and 1978 that ended in some kind of temporary
compromise. Sardar Khair Buksh Marri and Sardar Attaullah Megnal went into exile. Mir
Ghaus Baksh Bazinjo who remained in the country later blamed the military regime of
not honoring its promises most notably the rehabilitation of families victimized during
the military operations and judicial enquiries of the military action in Baluchistan.
By wining the partial support of Baluch and Pashtun leaders, Baluchistan and the NWFP
were momentarily contained, but it was in Sindh that discontent was brimming over,
aggravated by the role of the military regime in encouraging the formation of a new
political party, Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM) in 1984. The move was aimed at
countering Bhutto’s popularity in his home province. Bhutto had alienated the Urdu
speaking elite through his policy of affirmative action and making Sindhi language
compulsory in the province. The Urdu speaking population had always been in upper
echelon of power, now it soon dominated urban Sindh both in terms of street power as
well as by virtue of its strong presence in the Provincial Assembly, the Metropolitan
Corporation, the judiciary and educational institutions. The Zia-Bhutto tensions trickled
down to ordinary people in the form ethnic conflict in Sindh. Bhutto represented rural
Sindhis whereas Zia being the mentor of MQM represented the urban centers of power.
Zia built his political agenda on the foundations laid by Bhutto. Islam became an
instrument of coercion and oppression against the powerless and political opponents of
the military junta. The use of Islam compounded the problems of center-province
relations, pitting provincial secularists against Islamic fundamentalists dominant at the
center 25 . The problem was further compounded by the widespread perception in the
smaller provinces that Islamization process was a crude and veiled attempt to impose
Punjabi culture and values on the rest of the country.
The current resurgence of nationalist forces as well as religious extremism is the outcome
of Zia’s Islamisation those policies. However, the unrest in tribal region of NWFP has a
different resonance. It will be premature to link the tribal unrest the North and South
Waziristan with Pushtoon nationalism, since the vanguards of Pushtoon nationalism are
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supporting the military action in the area. Indeed, the rise of Pushtoon middle class has
transformed the nationalist movement in the Pashto speaking belt of Pakistan which now
has a sizeable share in the armed forces as well as the civil bureaucracy. The growing
trade and industrial relations between Punjab and NWFP also is a factor in the emerging
inter provincial political alliances. Nonetheless, the view that the country is ‘Punjabized’
has credibility given the fact that the two major institutions, the armed forces and
bureaucracy are still overwhelmingly dominated by the Punjabis but Punjabi-Pushtoon
and Punjabi-Mohajir political alliances seems to be shape of things to come.
Table 3 - Pakistan: Ethnic Representation in Federal Bureaucracy, 1973-2006
Province 1973 1983 1986 2005-6
All Senior All Senior All Senior All Senior
Punjab 49.3 53.5 54.9 55.8 55.3 57.7 49.65 56.37
NWFP 10.5 7.0 13.4 11.6 12.6 12.1 23.24 13.33
Sindh Rural 3.1 2.7 5.4 5.1 7.2 6.7 16.22 15.56
Sindh Urban 30.1 33.5 17.4 20.2 18.2 18.3
Baluchistan 3.09 3.08
Northern 2.6 1.3 3.6 3.4 1.4 1.5 6.02 8.67
Areas
FATA 0.5 1.70
AJK 1.8 0.5 1.9 0.9 1.7 0.7 1.23 1.25
Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
Source: Annual Statistical Bulletin of Federal Government Employees, 2006 & Mohammad Waseem,
Affirmative Action Policies in Pakistan, Ethnic Studies Report, ICES, Vol. XV. No 2, July 1997
In the 1980’s, political resistance to the center became concentrated in Sindh. The
province became a hotbed of separatist feeling after the overthrow of Bhutto by the
predominantly Punjabi army and his subsequent execution in 1979. Sindhi activism kept
the issue of provincial autonomy and power sharing from being submerged by the Islamic
rhetoric emanating from Islamabad 26 . Rasul Baksh Palejo, leader of the Awami Tehrik,
played a major role in the 1983 rural uprising in Sindh and had followers among students,
and rural women and peasants. The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD)
drew its main strength from Sindh. Thousands of activists were arrested, tortured and
many of them were killed during this period. G.M. Syed was another uncontested leader
of Sindhi nationalism who often publicly stated his preference for the break up of
Pakistan. However, it should be noted that the great majority of Sindhis can not be
categorized as separatists. In rural Sindh, the popularity of the PPP which has a national
rather than nationalist character remains a key factor in mitigating and challenging ethnic
consciousness. The results of the last six general elections show that Sindh is still a PPP
stronghold.
The decade long return of civilian rule under Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto did nt see
any major incidents of armed uprising, only sporadic blasts and rocket attacks on
government properties in Baluchistan. Significantly, though, the period was plagued with
sectarian menace and the mushrooming growth of religious extremist organizations, and
the killing of hundreds of people across Pakistan.
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The Current Nationalist Movement in Pakistan
The resurgence in tension between the central government and provinces can be located
in the failure of the center to fulfill the promises it had made in the 1973 Constitution.
There are conspiracy theories of involvement of international powers in supporting the
rebels in Baluchistan and orthodox academics believe that the United States, India, and
China have role in sustaining the rebellion in Baluchistan. Our focus here remains the
structural roots of the conflict.
The Baluch, Sindhis, Pashtuns and since the 1980’s the Mohajirs, have long demanded a
restructured relationship with the center that would transfer powers from what is seen as an
exploitative central government to the provinces. In addition to the traditional ethnonationalities,
several smaller ethnic groups have also come up to contend for recognition
and share in the power structure i.e., Saraiki, Makranis, Barohis, Chitralis, Gilgitis and
Hazarawals 27 . Interestingly, the grievances of the smaller groups are not limited to the
center but involve the majority ethnic groups within their provinces.
The 1973 constitution was framed in the backdrop of the independence of (East Pakistan)
Bangladesh in 1971 and was federal in nature, with a bicameral parliament. And for the
first time, it recognized the existence of three other nationalities but it guaranteed a
limited decentralization of political and fiscal powers to the federating units and the
regions. The constitution failed to safeguard the rights of smaller provinces due the
overwhelming majority of the Punjab in the parliament. All three provinces even put
together make less representation in the national assembly than the Punjab alone. The
strong alliance of Punjabis, Mohajirs and Pashtuns has further marginalized the Baluch,
Sindhis and other smaller ethnic groups in the political structure. Though the upper house
of the parliament has an equal representation of the provinces it lacks the power to
undertake issues related to budget allocation and other fiscal matters.
Table 4 - Representation of Provinces in National Assembly of Pakistan 2002-2007
General Seats Women Total
Baluchistan 14 3 17
Federally Administered Tribal Areas 12 - 12
Federal Capital 2 - 2
North West Frontier Province 35 8 43
Punjab 148 35 183
Sindh 61 14 75
Total 272 60 332
The 1973 Constitution provided two critical instruments for resource distribution. The
Council of Common Interest (CCI) was conceived as a critical institution in the federal
structure of the Constitution to safeguard the interests of federating units and meant to
serve as an advisory body to the federal as well as provincial governments. The National
Finance Commission (NFC) is the other constitutional instrument to recommend a
formula for sharing of revenue among the provinces. These two instruments CCI and the
NFC were made non functional and the first meetings of the CCI and NFC was called in
1991, eighteen years after the promulgation of the Constitution.
Sharing of resources from the centralized resource pool is determined on the basis of
population. That means Punjab will get the approximately 57% of the revenue and
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Baluchistan, which holds 47% of the total territory of the country, will get a meager 5.7%
It is one of the reasons for the underdevelopment of the smaller provinces. In 2003
Pakistan human development indices were estimated, for 91 districts and four provinces
and federally administered areas. The variation in Human Development Indices between
provinces and districts shows stark regional disparities in both the level of economic
growth as well as in terms of health, education and the quality of life.
Table 5 - Province-wise comparison of HDI
Province-wise share in Terms of HDI
Province Top Districts % Middle Districts % Bottom Districts %
Punjab 59% 32% 0%
Sindh 13% 29% 19%
NWFP 19% 21% 34%
Baluchistan 9% 18% 47%
Source: Pakistan National Human Development Report 2003
Considerable disparities and variation also exist across provinces with respect to literacy
rates which vary from 51 % in Sindh to 36% in Baluchistan. Similarly the primary
enrolment rate varies from 75 % in Punjab to 64 % in the Baluchistan province. The
human development index as a whole also varies from the highest in the Punjab to the
lowest in Baluchistan. The HDI disaggregated by rural and urban areas show that Sindh
urban (non-sindhi speaking) has the highest rank and Sindh rural has the lowest of HDI in
Pakistan.
Table 6 - Ranking of Provinces by Urban/ Rural and Overall Human Development Index
Name HDI HDI Rank
Sindh (urban) 0.659 1
Punjab (urban) 0.657 2
NWFP (urban) 0.627 3
Baluchistan (urban) 0.591 4
Punjab (rural) 0.517 5
NWFP (rural) 0.489 6
Baluchistan (rural) 0.486 7
Sindh (rural) 0.456 8
Overall Provincial Ranking
Punjab 0.557 1
Sindh 0.540 2
NWFP 0.510 3
Baluchistan 0.499 4
The indicators above show a link between the demands of nationalist political forces for
autonomy and the patterns of uneven development in the country. Baluchistan and Sindh
being the epicenter of nationalist cause are ranked the lowest on human development
index of Pakistan. Interestingly, urban areas of Sindh top the overall human development
indicators whereas Sindh rural falls at the bottom of the ranking index. The simmering
anger of the Sindhi speaking population is directed not only towards the Punjab but also
at the urban mohajirs population which shares a large chunk of quota of the province. Inmigration
to the province has reduced the number of Sindhis from 73.8% in 1951 to
59.73% in 1998. During the years 1981-1995 escalating inter group tensions in Sindh
forced a large number of migrants including Punjabi, Pashtuns and well off mohajirs to
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leave Karachi. Outward migration resulted in a 7.73 % increase in the number of Sindhi
speaking population in the province.
Table 7 - Percentage of population by mother tongue in Sindh
1941 1951 1981 1998
Sindhi 82% 73.8% 52% 59.73%
Urdu -- 9.7% 22.64% 21.05%
Others (Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi and
others)
18% 16.5% 24.96% 19.3%
In Pakistan policies of positive discrimination in favor of underdeveloped communities
and regions have been in place with regard to education, health facilities and
representation in public services. In the 1980’s Urdu speaking Mohajir demand for
elimination of the quota system peaked in urban Sindh. In contrast, the Sindhi speaking
population demanded quotas not only on the basis of their population in Pakistan but on
the ratio of Sindhi speaking population in the province. In Sindh, Mohajir were only 3%
of the population and held 21% of the jobs in the civil bureaucracy. In the fifteen years of
quota system after 1973, Mohajir representation in senior positions declined from 33.5%
to 18.3%. The emergence of MQM can be partially attributed to the quota system.
Significantly, the policy of recruitment to armed services was not allowed to be affected
by the quota system. The principle of merit rather than quota applied to the armed forces.
As a result, the colonial pattern of domination of Punjab, along with NWFP as a junior
partner, in the army continues unabated 28 . This has produced anti-Punjab feelings among
non-Punjabis all around.
Table 8 - Pakistan: Representation in Autonomous Bodies/ Public Corporations by provinces: 1993
Province percentage Prescribed Quota
Punjab 49.54 50.0
Sindh (Urban) 26.77 7.6
Sindh (Rural) 8.16 11.4
NWFP 10.17 11.5
Baluchistan 2.43 3.5
FATA 1.24 4.0
AJK 1.29 2.0
Source: Establishment Division, Government of Pakistan, Islamabad
The present ethnic composition of Sindh is such that Sindhis have already been reduced
to a minority in many parts of the province. Punjabis constitutes 10.6%, Pashtun 3.6%
and Balochi speaking 6% of the population and are primarily settled in highly developed
urban centers. Quota in jobs are determined by domicile and not by mother tongue hence
Punjabis, Mohajirs, Pashtuns because of their access to better education get preference
when competing for jobs in the public and private sectors. It is noteworthy, that the
majority of the Sindhi speaking population still favors the centrist Pakistan People’s Party
(PPP) rather than the nationalist forces.
The North West Frontier Province (NWFP) had a strong ethnic consciousness till the 70’s
but it too has changed with the progressive integration of the Pashtun population in the
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state structure and the market economy. Ethnic Pashtuns are considered to be the junior
partners of Punjab in the establishment and have a significant presence in the armed
forces (approximately 25%), civil bureaucracy and public sector corporations. The war in
Afghanistan and the arrival of nearly 2 million refugees in the province also helped in
diluting the demand for separate homeland for Pashtuns. However, the politics in NWFP
has taken a dangerous turn with nationalist Awaji National Party losing ground to the
Islamist Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami in the last general elections. The
province also is facing intra province tensions particularly in Gilgit-Baltistan and
autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where Islamist Jehadis and
sectarian forces have camped since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The
Islamist jehadis who in the past were loyal to the Pakistani state have parted their ways
and have turned hostile to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11 and subsequent ‘war on terror’ by
the United States. Islamist militants have attacked army check posts, government
facilities, and anti Taliban elements in the areas under their control. The security situation
was so grim that Pakistan had to withdraw its troops from its eastern border with India
and deploy them on the western borders and in areas under the militant’s control in North
and South Waziristan in NWFP. Tribal elders and clergymen, mostly loyal to Maulana
Fazlur Rehman’s party, also support the militants and have announced punishments for
local tribesmen helping Pakistani forces in the tribal areas 29 . Political analysts believe
that the conflict between tribal population of FATA and Pakistan army is still more of
Jehadi in nature than the nationalistic.
The situation in Baluchistan has been troubled since 1947 when Pakistan came into
existence. It is the largest province with 47% of the total geography of the country and
shares only 4.96% of the total population of Pakistan. That too is further divided into two
main ethnic groups i.e., Baluch and Pashtuns along with Punjabi, Urdu speaking and
Siraikis. The non Baluch population in the province constitutes approximately 45% of the
total in addition to 3 million Afghan refugees, who if get the citizens of Pakistan will
outnumber the Baluch. The Political composition of the province is such that the Pashtun
areas traditionally have been under the influence of Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam, a staunch
supporter of Taliban while the Baluch areas are under strict tribal control but
ideologically secular with the exception of women’s rights.
Baluchistan ranks lowest on the human development indicators of Pakistan. Successive
regimes in Islamabad blame the nationalist leaders for the under-development of the
province and the Baluch leaders on the other hand accuse the policies of central
government for underdevelopment of the Baluch areas. Both the arguments have merit.
The data shows that successive central governments treated the province as their colony
where they could exploit local natural resources with the connivance of local elite groups,
and largely for the benefit of Punjab and urban Sindh. However, it should be added that
today’s Baluch antagonists who have held the highest civilian portfolios in the province
on several occasions, did little for the development of the province. The question of
underdevelopment becomes complicated in the case of Baluchistan.
The popular perception regarding the current insurgency in Baluchistan is that it is linked
with mega development projects launched by central government in the province. There
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are for and against lobbies in Islamabad and in Baluchistan as well as in other parts of the
country. The proponents of the development projects worth billions of rupees argue that
without these projects the province will remain in the dark ages. They accuse the
traditional tribal elite, some of whom oppose the projects and allegedly are leading the
militancy, for all evils in the province – lack of infrastructure, illiteracy, unemployment
and underdevelopment of the people. They claim that tribal chiefs (Sardars) have always
been in power - no matter who governs in the center and have siphoned loads of money
in the name of people, citing in particular the deals between Nawab Akbar Khan Bughti
and Pakistan Petroleum Limited. The governments in Islamabad have found it easier to
make secret deals with individual tribal chiefs rather than negotiate with the people of the
province. These mega projects, the development proponents argue, will set them free of
centuries old clutches of authoritarian tribal system.
The ‘nationalist’ forces who are resisting the onslaught of development projects and the
accompanying establishment of military garrisons in Baluchistan claim that these projects
are aimed at robbing the province of its natural resources and to establish hegemony of
Punjab. These projects will not benefit the people of Baluchistan because the people of
the province are not in a position to compete with people of other provinces in terms of
education, skills and technology. The people from Punjab and Sind will occupy the most
lucrative positions in all sectors leaving the Balochi far behind in unattractive low paid
manual work. Moreover, non-Baluch will flood the province and reduce the already
negligible majority into an ethnic minority in their own homeland.
Development Projects and the issue of Autonomy
The government of Pakistan has launched multiple multi-million dollar projects in
Baluchistan beginning with the construction of a deep seaport in Gwadar, a tiny town at
the Makran coast. The Gwadar port project was started in 1992 but was held up due to
political instability in the country. China, an old and trusted friend of Pakistan, became
the ideal candidate to develop the port with an investment of $ 198 million and a promise
to fund other related projects in the region. Allied to Gwadar, a 700-km coastal highway
was completed linking Karachi on the east with Jiwani to the west, close to the Iranian
border. Establishment of railway link with Gwadar to Taftan in Iran via Saindak has been
planned. Saindak, the first metallurgical project aims at production of gold and blister
copper, was lying inactive since 1995 which has been revived with the Chinese help at
the cost of $30 million. A parallel road from Gwadar to Saindak, running parallel to the
Iran-Pakistan border will make it the shortest route to reach Central Asia from the warm
waters of Arabian Sea. To attract international investment Free Trade Economic Zone has
been set up. The second phase — Gwadar Deep Water Port Project — is expected to be
completed by 2010. The Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) has signed an agreement with
Singapore Port Authority (SPA) for the development and operation of the country’s taxfree
port and duty-free trade zone.
The actualization of these projects is expected to transform the region’s economic
relations, political outlook and demography. The nationalist political parties point out that
all decisions regarding the development projects are taken by the center without
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consultation with the provincial authorities and without the consent of the nationalist
forces, who claim to be the true representatives of the people of Baluchistan. The leader
of the Pakistan National Party, Dr. Abdul Haye Baluch told the author that “we are not
anti-development, but our concern is that development should take place for the sake of
people and not for outsiders. The pattern of development projects is such that it will
benefit people from other provinces and local population will end up being watchmen,
and peons. All we demand is that when government embarked on these projects it should
have started parallel project to develop local human resource so that local people are able
to participate in developments of province”.
Some Baluch leaders view the development projects as a blatant invasion of their land
and resource. Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, and Sardar Atta Ullah Mengal, the most
prominent and respected among the nationalists, demand an entirely new political
arrangement between the center and the provinces. The demand has gained a certain
degree of popularity and support among nationalists in Sindh, NWFP, and Punjab and
has resulted in the formation of an alliance of all nationalist parties and groups under the
banner of Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM). The alliance supports the
Baluch cause but so far has not able to significantly mobilize people in the other
provinces in a meaningful manner except on the issue of Kalabagh Dam.
In particular, the establishment of military garrisons and cantonment in Baluch areas has
provoked strong opposition from the tribal leaders and nationalists. Traditionally, land
has been under strict control of the tribal chiefs (Sardars). A prominent nationalist and
spokesperson of the Baluchistan National Movement, Senator Sana Baloch argues that
Pakistan army has 69 para-military cantonments, 6 heavy weapon cantonments, 6 naval
bases and three nuclear weapons testing facilities in Baluchistan along with
approximately 700 checkpoints in the region. He estimates the current army presence is
the province about 150,000 engaged in operation against Baluch people 30 .
Also at issue, is the decision to upgrade the status of the tribal areas from B to A areas 31 ,
thus bringing the areas under the direct control of the regular provincial police. The areas
presently are administered by the tribal chiefs with the help of levies and frontier
constabulary. Nawab Akbar Bughti, who was killed by armed forces in 2006, did not
accept the decision and resisted the move. The central government in spite of
recommendations to the contrary by a parliamentary committee, is moving ahead with its
plans of up gradation.
The most contentious issue in the development discourse is the expected demographic
change in the province. It is estimated that approximately 5 million people will be
coming to Baluchistan in order to complete and execute these projects. This will create
change the local traditional culture and local values. Although the government has
proposed safeguards such as non Baluch will not have right to vote in local, provincial
and national elections, the proposal has largely been rejected by the nationalists as eye
wash.
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It is questionable whether the nationalist forces in Pakistan have a popular support base
among the masses in any of the provinces. In Sindh, PPP and MQM are the two main
political players having absolute support in rural and urban areas respectively and both
favor a strong center within a democratic federal framework. The Punjab province has a
similar political landscape with some meager voices for regional autonomy emerging in
the southern districts but with very limited popular support as the region is under strict
feudal control of landed aristocracy. The situation in NWFP and Pashto speaking belt of
Baluchistan is not that different from the other provinces for two reasons: One, Pashtuns
now share the fruits of economic and political power with Punjabi ruling elite and strong
middle class that has emerged in the last two decades will resistance any attempt for
session, and two, the growing influence of religious parties in the Pashtun belt has helped
in mitigating the nationalist sentiments among the Pashto speaking population. The
current phase of Baluch nationalist movement has got very little support from Pashtuns
that shows the changing political landscape in the Pakistan. It will be pertinent to note
that the armed struggle of the 70’s was openly supported by Pashtuns.
Finally the real stakeholders in the present resurgence of the nationalist agenda are the
Baluch people. The movement is weakened by a lack of political unity and a firm future
agenda. Also, it is argued that the nationalists will find it difficult to maintain the
momentum of resistance when these projects are actualized and the ‘trickle down effect’
offers local people the choice of having a job in a factory, rather than being a nomad
without any security of livelihood.
In the 70’s and 80’s civil society organization like lawyers, students unions, teachers, and
intellectual and writes not only provided intellectual impetus to the people’s movements
but also stood by them in streets fighting the authoritarianism and autocratic rule of Z.A.
Bhutto and Zia ul Haq. That vibrant civil society has been weakened and that public
space largely has been taken over by foreign funded apolitical NGO.
Human Right Commission of Pakistan and some others have been organizing some
protests meetings and seminars in order to condemn the human rights violations in
Baluchistan and other parts of the country but with no effect on those who call the
shots 32 . The national level mainstream political parties till date remain opportunistic
looking for an opportunity to make a deal with the military regime. Musharraf’s
confidence is evident from attitude his towards the recommendations of a parliamentary
committee on Baluchistan that proposed wide rage of measures to address the insurgency
in Baluchistan. The report was shelved.
Conclusion
The current resurgence of national minority question, ethnic identity, and sectarian
rivalries is closely linked to the nature of the Pakistani state. The leadership of the
country is haunted by a ‘siege mentality’. The state apparatus, right from the inception,
has been heavily weighted in favor of non-elected institutions and particular ethnic
groups. Governments in the center, elected and unelected, have overridden provincial
rights and demands for regional autonomy that has left the smaller nationalities with little
choice but to rise against the state. The success of Bengalis in 1971, encouraged the
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Baluch people. Their efforts could not succeed, not least because of the small population
of Baluchistan, and the lack of tangible international support.
Also, most regional and nationalist political parties still seek provincial autonomy within a
federal parliamentary democratic framework. There is little support for secession. None of
the nationalist forces have a charismatic and credible leadership like Sheikh Mujeebur
Rehman, G.M Syed, Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan and Mir Ghaus Baksh Bizenju. Moreover, a
new middle class is emerging in almost in all four provinces of the country which is
resisting the hegemony of traditional leadership. The devolution plan introduced in 2000 by
the military led government had brought in thousand of middle class people into the
political mainstream including over 43,000 women. This new class of relatively young
politician has already started challenging the traditional feudal and tribal elites.
Nevertheless, militant sentiments could grow in rural Sindh, Baluchistan and FATA if
Islamabad does not reverse ill-advised policies pushed by the military-civilian clique.
Ironically, the Musharraf government openly negotiates with so-called ‘extremists
terrorists’ in North and South Waziristan in NWFP but refuses to talk to secular
nationalist in Baluchistan. In the final analyses, the military will not be able to crush the
growing resentment of sections of Baluch people with force. The disadvantages which
nationalist’s forces have can be turned into guerilla advantages – the vast mass of
hinterland which for any military will be impossible to control unless there is some
agreement between the warring parties.
1 Ahmed Feroz, Ethnicity and Politics in Pakistan, Oxford University Press, Pakistan 1998
2 Ibid
3 Mubarak Ali, Pakistan’ s Search for Identity, in Competing Nationalisms in South Asia, Orient Longman
2002
4 All India Muslim League demanded the division of Bengal on communal lines but opposed the division of
Punjab on similar lines.
5 Tapan K. Bose, SAFHR Paper series 16, SAFHR, Katmandu 2003
6 David Taylor and Malcolm Yapp (eds), Political Identity in South Asia, Curzon Press, London 1979, p.x.
7 Farida Shaheed & Abbas Rashid, Pakistan: Ethnic Identities and Contending Elites, Discussion Paper No
45, 1993, UNRISD
8 See The Lahore Resolution 1940.
9 Ibid
10 Jinnah, Speeches and Statements 1947-1948, Oxford University Press 2000
11 On this Aysha Jalal comments " One can either conclude that the definition of an 'Islamic State' in the
Quaid-e-Azam's personal lexicon was wholly unique or that the travails of office as Pakistan's first
Governor-General had weakened his resolve never to take the path of least resistance on matters to do with
religion." Jalal, The State of Martial Rule.
12 Mohajirs were the people who migrated from northern India after the partition of India and were most
educated among the Muslims – that offered them relatively more opportunities in jobs and businesses after
the partition.
13 Farida Shaheed & Abbas Rashid, Pakistan: Ethnic Identities and Contending Elites, Discussion Paper No
45, 1993, UNRISD
14 M.H. Panhwar, Reminiscences of G.M. Sayed http://www.panhwar.com
15 When Jinnah was governor general, a section 92a was introduced to the Government of India Act 1935
as a means of facilitating direct rule by the center. Pakistan was governed by this act –as amended by the
India Independence Act 1947 – until 1956 when the Constituent Assembly framed the first constitution.
16 Mohammad Waseem, Affirmative Action Policies in Pakistan, Ethnic Studies Report, ICES, Vol. XV.
No 2, July 1997
155

17
Aitizaz Ahsan, The Indus Saga, Aitzaz Ahsan, a noted jurist and parliamentarian, surveys the history
18
The number of killings is contested – some quote it 1.5 to 2 millions.
19
Aeysha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia, Cambridge University Press 1995 pp. 77
20
Ijaz Khan, Peace and Democracy in South Asia, Volume 2, Numbers 1&2, 2006
21
Anayat Allah Baloch, The Baluch Question in Pakistan and The Right to Self-Determination.
22
Ibid
23
The second amendment in the constitution of 1973 declared Ahmadiyas non-Muslims. The amendment
was introduced in 1974.
24
Ayesha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia, Cambridge University Press 1995
25
G.G.P Rakisits, Center-Province relations in Pakistan under President Zia: The Government’s and the
Opposition Approaches. Pacific Affairs, Vol.61, No 1 (Spring 1988), University of British Columbia.
26
Mohammad Ayoob, Dateline Pakistan: A Passage to Anarchy?
27
Aijaz Khan, Peace and Democracy in South Asia, Volume 2, Number 1&2, 2006
28
Stephen P. Cohen in his book The Pakistan Army writes that ‘ after the independence, it was determined
that over 77 percent of the wartime recruitment had been from Punjab, 19.5% from NWFP, 2.2% from
Sindh and just over 0.06 percent from Baluchistan (and of these total numbers 90.7% had served in the
army) Today, the percentages have not changed dramatically: 75% of all ex-servicemen come from only
three districts of the Punjab (Rawalpindi, jhelum and Campbellpur) and two adjacent district of NWFP
(Kohat and Mardan) – Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army, Oxford University Press, Karachi 1998.
29
Rahimullah Yousafzai, Monthly Newline, June 2002, Karachi
30 th
June 27 , committee room 16, house of commons, UK
31
The present government is trying to bring more districts under direct control of regular police which so
far were being administered under the colonial administrative arrangements by the levies and he local tribal
chiefs have greater role in the administration. The areas are divided into ‘A’ and ‘B’ categories. ‘B’ areas
are where no police rule exists and most of the Baluchistan consisted of ‘B’ areas till date.
32
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a non governmental organization, sent fact finding missions to
Baluchistan which reported massive violations of human rights. Hundreds of political activists have
disappeared and livelihood of the people in conflict areas has been totally destroyed.
156

The Indigenous Peoples: Victims of the Politics of Denial
Tapan Kumar Bose
Colonial Encounter and Racist Epistemologies
The concept or the term ‘indigenous people’ is relatively new in the lexicon of social
sciences. Until recently the more familiar terms were ‘savages’, ‘primitive people’,
‘aborigines’, ‘natives’ and ‘tribes’. These terms were current among the European
anthropologists, geneticists and cultural historians during the halcyon days of
colonialism. These referred to the ‘backwardness’ and ‘supposed primitivism’ of the non-
Western people. This provided the theoretical foundations of the theory of ‘white mans
burden’ – the coloniser’s mission of civilising the natives and the savages in the colonies.
Anthropologists and other social scientists defined people on the basis of physical
features, race, gene and other esoteric criteria like absence of social hierarchy,
undeveloped language, use of dialects, animism, hunting and gathering, meat eating,
fondness for alcohol, dancing and naked or semi-naked people. The fact that about 90 per
cent of the people classified as tribes and dismissed as ‘ignorant and simple people’ had
well organised social structures, systems of justice, languages, religions and their own
histories were ignored or considered not worth studying.
Christian Missionaries who often accompanied the colonial expeditions in their
despatches to the Vatican often described the ‘tribes’ they encountered in the jungles and
in the ‘up-lands’ as essentially a simple and ignorant population – a kind of a gentle
savage. H. H. Risely, a Revenue Collector of the East India Company working in Jungle
Mahals (present Midnapore district of West Bengal), dismissed the entire Santhal
community, saying, “A people whose only means of recording facts consists of tying
knots in strings, and who have no bards to hand down a national epic by oral tradition,
can hardly be expected to preserve the memory of their past long enough or accurately
enough for their accounts of it to possess any historical value”. (Tribes and Castes of
Bengal, vol.2, P. 225, Calcutta 1891).
The 19th century British colonial administrators of India were hostile towards the
Christian missionaries as they believed that the missionaries were encouraging the tribes
to agitate for the restitution of their land. Some missionaries were asked to leave the tribal
areas. During the later part of the 18 th century the East India Company extended the
Zamindari system into tribal homelands - Singhbhum, Manbhum, Birbhum, Chotanagpur
and Jungle Mahals. Ijardars and Jamindars were appointed for their capacity to collect
land revenue from the local peasants. The tribal communities of this region - Mundas,
Paharias, Hos, Santhals, Oraons, Birhors, Lodhas, Kurmis, Bhumijs saw their traditional
leaders – the Sardars, Majhis and Rajas being replaced by outsiders. They became rent
paying serf in their own homeland. As the tribes people revolted against this intrusion
into their lives, it created tension between them and the non-tribal Hindus and Muslim
landlords as well as the British colonisers. The 18 th and 19 th centuries witnessed several
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wars between the tribes and the British colonial administration and their Hindu- Muslim
partners. Of these rebellions of the tribes some of the more known ones are the Paharia
revolt (1783), the Santhal revolt (1855-56), the Munda revolt (1884-1890) , the Kol revolt
in Eastern India and the war with the Nagas in the northeast.
Shaken by the experience of the Santhal revolt, the Board of the East India Company had
appointed W.W. Hunter to look into the causes of the revolt. His 1886 report, popularly
known as the Annals of Rural Bengal finally resulted in the recognition of the differences
between the tribal and non-tribal societies and the adoption of a protectionist policy. But
these so-called protectionist measures did not stop the alienation of tribal land, which was
the main cause of the Santhal rebellion. Thousands of men and women belonging to the
tribal communities, Santhals, Oraons, Hos and Mundas were forcibly taken away to work
in tea gardens which were being established on the land of the Angami Nagas in the Naga
Hills. Not much is known about the process of forcible uprooting, transportation and
relocation of the Santhal, Munda and Ho men women, children from their original habitat
to Assam, Darjeeling and even to the West Indies and Fiji as indentured labourers. A later
day Indian author, Mulk Raj Anand tried to recreate the plight of these people in two of
his novels – ‘Two Leaves and a Bud’ and ‘Coolie’. Clearly the need for profit
overshadowed the concern of the Christian missionaries in the British Indian Empire.
During the later part of the nineteenth century, when colonial powers were scrambling for
Africa, concern for the tribal/ aboriginal populations in Africa and Asia was voiced by
some European Christian missionaries and a few humanists. A weak effort was made in
Europe to establish an international responsibility for the tribes of the Congo basin. The
effort was abandoned after Belgium's conquest of Congo (now Zaire) and the
establishment there of one of the worst colonial administrations.
Humanist concern for the oppressed is also a feature of the history of colonialism. In the
19 th century voices were raised by ‘humanists’ and ‘good Christians’ in Europe against
the slave trade and the ruthless oppression and genocide of the ‘aborigines’ or the ‘tribes’
in the distant colonies. Without attempting to devalue the seriousness of the humanist
concern of that period, I would like to add that these pioneers were limited in their
perspective. They did not question the primitiveness or the backwardness of these people.
They campaigned for ‘protection’ of these ‘primitive people’ on humanitarian grounds.
For example, the Aborigines Protection Society, formed in London in the early nineteenth
century, lobbied for protection of the aborigine populations of the new colonies on
humanitarian grounds. As a result of these campaigns, certain protectionist measures
were introduced in British North America. Later, these measures formed the basis for the
centralised jurisdiction over 'Indian Lands and Indian Reserves' in the Constitution Act of
USA.
‘Indigenous peoples’ enter the international lexicon
After the First World War, minority rights figured on the agenda of international concern,
primarily because of the ill treatment of some of the minorities in mainland Europe and in
the colonies during the war. Some standards for the treatment of colonised people were
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provided in the Covenant of the League of Nations. In the work of the League of Nations
we find the recognition of the concept of ‘indigenous peoples’ for the first time. It
emerged as a part of a League of Nations initiative for the protection of the ‘native
population’ of Liberia who were being evicted out of their traditional home land by the
African-Americans, the descendents of slaves who had returned from the United States,
to set up their own homeland in Africa.
However on a later date, when the partition of Palestine was imposed on the Palestinian
people by the blatantly unfair Balfour Agreement, the international community and the
newly formed United Nations was curiously silent abut the rights of the ‘indigenous
populations’ of Palestine. As we know, all the internationally blessed peace
agreements/settlement proposals on the Israel – Palestine dispute have endorsed the
Israeli position that the Palestinians evicted from the homelands for the creation of Israel,
will not be allowed to go back their homes
The wider use of the term ‘indigenous’ came much later. The International Labour
Organisation (ILO), set up at the time of the League of Nations, was also involved in
developing standards for the protection of the tribal populations in the 1920s. The ILO,
however, was not able to make any significant impact in this area until the end of the
Second World War. Between 1950 and 1970, the ILO worked as the lead agency in an
internationally funded multi-dimensional development programme for ‘indigenous
populations’ of the Andean region of South America. It was this involvement of the ILO
which led to the acceptance of the term ‘indigenous’ and the adoption of the Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples Convention' in 1957. It is popularly known as ILO Convention No.
107.
In the meantime, between 1920 and 1950, several indigenous groups of North America,
who were in general clubbed under the misconceived term ‘Red Indians’, sent their
representatives to the League of Nations and later to the United Nations. They submitted
several memoranda to the UN Human Rights Commission demanding the recognition of
their right to self-determination as the ‘indigenous’ peoples who were colonised by
outsiders from Europe. The called themselves the ‘First nation’. These delegations,
however, were not entertained. Nor were their memoranda accepted.
Also, the manner in which the decolonisation discourse was articulated, foreclosed the
possibility of any recognition of indigenous peoples rights. Decolonization as a principle
of 'self-determination' was accepted after lengthy debates in the General Assembly of the
United Nations in the 1960s. Even then it was made clear that self-determination as
decolonisation did not apply to 'internal' collectivities. The so-called Blue waters and Salt
waters mindset limited decolonisation only to overseas territories. Because of this limited
definition of the ‘right of self-determination’, the ‘indigenous’ issue could not be put on
the UN agenda through the route of decolonisation/self-determination. The only opening
left was through the route of minority rights and discrimination.
In the 1960s in Europe, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)
and Survival International were formed. They took up the campaign against the genocide
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and ethnocide of indigenous populations in South America. In 1975, some of the pioneer
indigenous organisations such as the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and
the International Indian Treaty Organisation in the US were formed. They started
lobbying the UN and the Western European governments. The Government of Norway
was the first to be convinced. After the fourth Russell Tribunal hearings on indigenous
peoples in Rotterdam, the Netherlands also became a strong supporter. Other Northern
European countries joined later.
Topsy-turvy era of the Sixties
The sixties was a period of great upheaval in Europe, America and Asia. It was a revolt
against the inequities inherent in the social and economic order of the so-called free
world. Dissatisfied with the quality of life, the nuclear arms stockpile, the growing power
of the multinational corporations sections of young intellectuals, students and writers
made common cause with the workers in mainland Europe and the struggling masses in
the former colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Viet Nam War became the
focus of anti-imperialist movement. Works of intellectuals like Jean Paul Sartre, Herbert
Marcus and Franz Fanon stimulated the minds of the youth. Sections of social scientists
felt encouraged to interrogate the theoretical basis for viewing the history of civilisation
as a linear process -like a ladder.
Informed by the new emerging perspectives of feminism, the growing consciousness of
ecology and the theory of ‘symbiosis’, (i.e. the culture of living in harmony with nature,
propounded by the ecologists), sections of social scientists challenged the linear theory of
civilisation. The classification of communities as aborigines, primitive peoples and
viewing their social, economic and political systems and institutions as ‘lower’ or
‘underdeveloped’ was no longer acceptable. The uni-linear theory of civilisation gave
way to the multi-linear view of cultural history. Social and cultural practices of the socalled
primitive peoples or the tribes and their knowledge systems became attractive sites
of research.
The academic-activist interaction of the sixties and the seventies touched the minds and
the hearts of the young people all over the world. The young intellectuals in the newly
independent countries in Africa, Asia and Latin Americas, too began to interrogate the
liberal theories of political democracy and the capitalist system of economy. The debate
on the right to self-determination was reopened. The rights discourse was enriched with
the inclusion of social, economic and cultural rights. The contentious issues of collective
rights entered the discourse.
In South Asia, large numbers of young university students left their homes to join the
struggle of the workers and peasants. In India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka armed struggles
were launched by the peasantry. The armed struggle in India was largely based in the
tribal areas. It began from Naxalbari, in northern part of West Bengal inhabited by
Santhal Tribes. Though the armed struggle of the peasantry in India was crushed, the
sixties generation of India’s radical left re-emerged as the supporters of the rights of the
tribal (Adivasi) peoples over ‘water-forest and land’. They took up cudgels for the
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‘oppressed nationalities’ and joined the movement of the tribal peoples for the
establishment of their homelands where they would be able to preserve their culture, life
systems and economy in (Jharkhand, Chattishgarh) in central and eastern India. In the
tribal majority area of North East India, the Mizo, Naga, Khasi and Adi peoples, too
became strong. The new Forest policy of the Indian government which proposed
‘nationalisation’ of all forests and conversion of all forest villages of the tribes into
‘virtual labour camps’ had to be abandoned in the face of the strong opposition put up by
a combination of the new ‘ecologists’ , young radicals and the tribal peoples.
Indigenous peoples enter the UN
In the 1970s, Willemsen Diaz, who worked in the UN Human Rights Centre in Geneva,
initiated efforts to incorporate the indigenous issue into the UN agenda. As a result of his
works, the Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minority
Rights accepted a recommendation to set up a separate study on the problems of
discrimination against indigenous populations. The study was authorised in 1972 with
José Martinez Cobo as the Special Rapporteur. Inadequate staffing and lack of funds
hampered the work of the Special Rapporteur. Cobo was able to make only a couple of
field trips, and the study was finally completed in 1983.
In 1982, at the initiative of Mr. Theo Van Boven of the Netherlands, who was then the
head of the UN Human Rights Centre, and with the support of some of the European
states, a UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations was set up as a pre-session
working group of the Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of
Minorities. It should be noted that the credit for getting the UN to accept the indigenous
issue on its agenda goes to the indigenous groups of North America and some of the
pioneer European NG0s which were concerned with the genocide of indigenous
populations in South America. At this stage no Asian or African NGO or indigenous
peoples' organisation was involved in this effort. Even the Australian indigenous peoples
did not join the effort until the early 1980s. It is natural that as these peoples were mainly
exposed to the indigenous peoples of America, their understanding of the indigenous
issue at the conceptual level was strongly influenced by the American situation.
However, this does not mean that the indigenous or tribal peoples of Asia were silent or
that NG0s of the Asian countries did not take up the cause of the tribal peoples in their
countries. As a matter of fact, in Asia the tribal peoples of Burma (Myanmar),
Bangladesh, India, Japan and Pakistan have been engaged in a long and protracted
struggle against the states for establishing their rights over land and other resources. They
have also been fighting for the protection of their culture, language, livelihood, religion
and social and political institutions. Considerable work has been done in these countries
by humanist scholars, political organisations, social reformers and NG0s for the
protection of the rights of the tribal peoples, as well as on the question of their right of
self-rule, self-government and self-determination.
As a result, in some of these countries constitutional and legal reforms were introduced
which provided protection to the tribal populations. Unfortunately, as most Asian
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governments did not allow their NG0s to participate in the UN fora, the Asian tribal
peoples and their organisations were unable to participate in the process that led to the
incorporation of the indigenous issue on the UN agenda.
The UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations started its work in 1982. It was given
a dual task: First, to develop a criterion for determining the concept of ‘indigenous’ and,
second, to develop standards to guide member states of the UN in relation to the rights of
the indigenous minorities in their jurisdictions. The Working Groups, which are a part of
a sub-commission of the UN Human Rights Commission, have no juridical or legislative
function. These bodies are to discuss human rights issues and draft proposals. They may
indicate the norms of international law as established by member states in practice, but
they do not have the power to establish new norms. Even the norms or principles
established in the declarations of the UN General Assembly do not become international
law until these are subsequently ratified by the state in the form of covenants and other
international instruments.
UN Working Group and the conceptual debate
As the Working Group was set up without defining indigenous peoples, the definition
developed by . José Martinez Cobo, Special Rapporteur on Discrimination against
Indigenous Populations, was accepted by the Working Group (Sanders 1989):
"Indigenous populations are composed of the existing descendants of the peoples who inhabited the
present territory of a country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic
origin arrived there from other parts of 'the world, overcame them, by conquest, settlement or other means,
reduced them to a non-dominant or colonial condition; who today live more in conformity with their
particular social, economic and cultural customs and traditions than with the institutions of the country of
which they now form part, under a state structure which incorporates mainly national, social and cultural
characteristics of other segments of the population which are predominant." (Martinez Cobo, 1972).
In his final report published almost twelve years later, Martinez Cobo did not add
anything new to the definition at the conceptual level. However, while defining an
indigenous person he added that any individual who identified himself or herself as
indigenous and was accepted by the group or the community as one of its members was
to be regarded as an indigenous person (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Add.4. para.381).
The Draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1995date?)
prepared by the Working Group does not include a definition of indigenous peoples or
populations. The Chairperson – the Rapporteur of the Working Group, Ms. Erica Irene
Daes – has justified this omission on the ground that “historically, indigenous peoples
have suffered, from definitions imposed by others” and as a result, in certain countries
many indigenous peoples have been declassified. She maintained that because of this
reason, the members of the Working Group insisted that no indigenous community,
organisation, nation or even indigenous person from whatever region should be denied
the right to express peacefully and without abuse an opinion or a viewpoint in the
sessions of the Working Group. According to her, through this participatory process the
Working Group was able to develop the widely accepted comprehensive Draft
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Declaration of Rights of the indigenous Peoples ‘without feeling a need for elaborating a
definition of indigenous peoples’. (E/ CN.4/Stib.2/AC.4/1995/3, page 3).
The Working definition suffers from several flaws. The first flaw is that it defines
indigenous peoples primarily from a chronological perspective. By identifying
indigenous peoples with those who inhabited' an area before it was conquered or
colonised by 'people from other parts of the world' the working definition has limited the
applicability of this definition mainly to pre-colonial populations. In any case, to decide
the issue with reference to only 500 years of European colonialism is to ignore the history
of non-European civilisations.
Having frozen the identity of the indigenous peoples in a historical-chronological axis, it
treats the category of indigenous as a priori. And from it follows the definition of
indigenous culture, customs, religion, society and history. The survival of the indigenous
identity is explained by its isolation on the one hand and its marginalisation and
discrimination on the other. This approach is simplistic as it treats indigenous peoples in
terms of an ‘ethnographic present', as if the thousands of years of human history and
interactions have not substantially altered the cultures of different peoples.
Among other things, this approach also fails to explain the phenomena of the survival of
the 'indigenous' identity in the face of adversity. Moreover, ethnic identities have also
survived. But not all ethnic communities have lived in isolation. Many ethnic
communities have completely lost control over their 'homeland' or the territory which
was the cradle of their culture. Yet their identities have survived. What then are the
differences between ethnic groups and indigenous peoples?
It does raise a rather ticklish issue. It is a fact that the white Afrikaners from South
Africa, after the abolition of apartheid, went to the Working Group as an indigenous
people. Likewise, the Kashmiri Pundits community of India has been attending the
sessions of the Working Group with the blessings of the Indian Government. Both these
ethnic communities did not suffer from isolation or discrimination. On the contrary, until
recently they were in power and were practising discrimination against others.
In 1983, realising that Cobo's original definition was not adequate to cover the isolated
and marginal tribal populations of the Asian continent, the scope and the ambit of the
'working definition' was enlarged. It was decided that all those marginal and isolated
groups existing in many countries who may not have suffered conquest or direct
colonisation might be considered as indigenous peoples if they fulfilled the following
criteria:
"(a) they are the descendants of groups, which were in the
territory at the time when other groups of different cultures or ethnic origin arrived there
(b) precisely because of their isolation from other segments of the country's population they have almost
preserved intact the customs and traditions of their ancestors which are similar to those characterised as
indigenous,
(c) they are, even if only formally, placed under a state structure which incorporates national, social and
cultural characteristics alien to their own" (FICN. 41Sub.211983121 Adds. Para. 379).
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But even these additional criteria did not remove the confusion that is in the definition.
This confusion exists not only among governments and experts, but also among the
isolated, marginalised and tribal peoples of Africa, Asia and Asia Pacific.
During the 12th Session of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in June
1994, some of the representatives of indigenous or tribal peoples of Asian countries
addressed the need to redefine the criteria for determining the concept of indigenous
peoples.
The confusion basically emanates from the use of the term 'indigenous'. In social
sciences, terminologies carry a multiplicity of meanings. Social scientists selectively
choose one or a few of the several meanings possible while using these terminologies.
But it should be remembered that a concept or a term has no independent existence. It
derives its meaning not only from theory, but is shaped by the contemporary power
structure of which it is a part. There is also another contributing factor, and that is the
dialogue between the theorists and the activists. And that dialogue is mediated by the
dominant power structures. To what extent the activist perception gets integrated into the
conception depends on the influence exerted by that power structure.
The current concept or the theory of 'indigenous' has been shaped by the dialogue
between academics and activists of Western Europe and North America, as well as the
power structures of Western Europe which lent their support in and outside the UN. The
concept, therefore, has its origins in a colonial historical perspective. When it is applied
to the people of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand it creates no confusion, but
when the same concept is applied to the peoples of Asia and Africa, it creates confusion.
The Asian situation
It has been said by several Asian governments and many scholars, with some amount of
justification, that this definition applies only to the conquered peoples of the Americas,
Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific areas and leaves out the tribal peoples of Asia and
Africa, in particular, and some ethnic communities in mainland Europe. In the countries
of Asia and Africa where migration has continued for thousands of years, it is impossible
to identify any group as indigenous on a chronological basis. The tongue in cheek
statement of the representative of the Government of India that after the departure of the
British - the 'foreigners' who ruled over India for 200 years - only 'indigenous' peoples
were left in India and hence, all Indians are indigenous, shows the weakness of this
method of identifying indigenous peoples in Asia and Africa.
Governments of the Asian region have taken advantage of the confusion in the UN
definition to exclude millions of tribal peoples of Asia and Africa from the designation
of indigenous peoples. These peoples who are called 'scheduled tribes' in India, 'tribes' in
Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan and Thailand, and 'nationalities' in Burma
(Myanmar) and China are treated as minorities within the nation-state systems. The
ground for exclusion is that the tribal peoples of these countries are no longer colonised
by overseas powers. Such an approach is a historical, a structural and partisan. Moreover,
164

it ignores the phenomenon of internal colonialism by the non-tribal dominant groups
within the state structures, both in the past and at present.
We have already seen that the term 'tribe' is closely connected with the rise of European
colonialism and its racist hegemonic ideology. Despite its ideological connotation, the
term has survived, especially in those post-colonial countries where a small fraction of
the population has been classified as 'tribes'. Though its usage varies from country to
country, it has always carried a negative connotation. Ironically. in the academic circles
of these post colonial societies this term is still defined in much the same way as was
done in the mid-nineteenth century by European academics like Morgan. It is important
to understand this, lest we become confused by the varied new terminologies used by
different governments.
In China or Burma, the term used is 'nationality'. But it does not mean recognition of an
equal partner in an assembly of nationalities. It is used to define a minority, which needs
to be 'developed and integrated' into the mainstream of Chinese or Burmese society. In
Burma, at the time of independence , all the political leaders had signed the Panglong
Agreement, which provided for the establishment of a federation in which all the
federating ‘nationalities’ – Kachin, Chin, Arakanese, Shan, Mong and Karens - would
enjoy equal status with the Burmans. However, immediately after independence, the
‘mainstream’ Burmese leaders broke the agreement, imposed Burmese language as the
only official language on all the people and declared Buddhism as the national religion.
In East Pakistan, the Regulation of 1900, which offered limited protection to the lands of
the hill tribes – Chakma, Marma, Tipera, Bam - was withdrawn, when Pakistan
government decided to build the Kaptai Dam that inundated vast areas of tribal homeland
in the Chittagong Hill tracts. Virtually no compensation was paid. More than 200,000
displaced tribal people had to seek refuge in Burma and India.
Let us now examine the Hindi term 'Adivasi' which is commonly used in India to
describe tribal people. The word originates from Hindu religious texts. Literally
translated, it means 'original inhabitants'. But that is not the meaning in which it was
customarily used. It was used in a cultural and a social context to refer to people who
were outside the folds of the Hindu social system. It referred to people who had a
different culture, religion, language and social system. But this recognition of the
'otherness' did not mean that they were accepted as equals. The Hindus and Adivasi did
not inter-marry neither did they relate to each other socially. The term 'Adivasi' was used
in a derogatory sense to mean 'junglee', i.e. uncultured forest dwellers. As the forest
dwelling Adivasis were hunter gathers, they were seen as ‘unclean people’ because they
ate almost every animal they killed for food.
Six decades after India’s independence the ground realities have not changed much. It is
true that the pro ‘Scheduled Tribe’ Reservation Policy of the Indian state enabled a small
number of Adivasis to enter the parliament as elected members through ‘reserved
constituencies’ and a handful of them have joined the elite Indian administrative,
diplomatic and police services through ‘reserve quota’, however, it has done little to
enhance the social and political status of the Adivasi in Indian society. They still remain
165

the ‘outsiders’ who have strange social practices and unclean food habits. The arrogance
and the attitudes towards these people and their histories, which the ruling classes, ‘the
brown sahibs’- Macaulay’s archetypes, imbibed from their ‘assimilation’ with the
colonial masters continue to block the Adivasi people’s progress to social equality even
today as the ‘Brown Sahib’ mentality and culture continue to dominate social and cultural
aspects in post independent India.
A political debate
Throughout human history, people have moved from place to place, continent to
continent. Intercultural influences and internal dynamics are near universal processes of
history. Before the advent of colonialism and world capitalism, communities apparently
lived in peaceful coexistence and there was syncretism among culturally diverse
societies. Anthropologists say that with the advent of settled agriculture based on the use
of the field furrow and domesticated traction animal came private property. As these
communities became economically and militarily more powerful they pushed the
communities who practiced hunting and gathering into areas where settled agriculture
was not feasible – like hilly areas, arid and desert regions and forests.
Some of the early linguists of the colonial days classified the language of the Munda and
Ho people of Jharkhand as a member of the Austroasiatic language family which
comprises languages spoken in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Burma. These
studies have given support to the theories of Austroasian family of people once
inhabiting the central uplands of Indian (Gondwana) and over centuries migrating to parts
of South East Asia and Polynesia.
Nineteenth century European scholars of early Indian literature (Vedic and Sanskrit)
claimed that the Arian/Brahmanical culture slowly spread from the north west of India
across the Gangetic plains into the east and south. These scholars viewed the epic
Mahabharat as an account of internal conflict among the ‘Aryan conquers’ and the epic
Ramayana, as the story of the further spread of ‘Brahmanism’ towards the south.
Twentieth century scholars like G. N. Hiralal, T. Paramasiva Iyer and H. D. Sankalia held
that the war in Ramayana represented the struggle between the communities in the
embryonic stage of settled agriculture and the communities who were in the culture of
hunting and gathering. In the songs of ‘Rigveda’ and in the ‘Grihya’ rituals, Sita is
described as the field furrow in which ‘seeds’ are planted. There are elaborate Vedic
rituals for paying divine tributes to the field furrow. In other words ‘Sita’ represented the
Aryan (Vedic) society’s transition from culture of ‘hunting-gathering’ to settled
agriculture and animal husbandry.
The characters of Ramayana – Rama and Sita were allegorical figures – personification
of certain occurrences and situations and that the central scheme of the epic was the
abduction of ‘Sita’ by a giant demon and her subsequent recovery by Rama. In this war
against the demons, those natives who were well disposed towards Aryan civilisation
were described as monkeys – a rather unflattering description. G. Ramdass has argued
that Ravana was the king of the Gond tribes/indigenous community of Central India
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while M. V. Kive’s research in central Indian had led him to conclude that Lanka was
located in the Amarkantak plateau of present day Indian state of Chattishgarh.
Many Indian scholars believe that the Aryans who came to India around 1800-1500 B.C.
had subjugated sections of the indigenous people of the subcontinent. Later, depending of
the skills of these people and the services they provided, they were integrated into the
society’s lower echelons as ‘polluted’ people or ‘untouchable castes’. Other people who
probably did not possess suitable skills or could not be enslaved, were pushed into
uplands and forests where they enjoyed relative autonomy. These accounts of history
may or may not be true. However these provide plausible explanations of the survival of
the Adivasi in the forest tracts, all across India, from the west to the east coast, through
central India and connecting up to the northeast.
Victims of internal colonialism
The so-called conceptual debate on the definition of ‘Indigenous’ and whether it is
applicable to post colonial Asian states will remain inconclusive. No concept can fully
define a reality. But what is important to note is that the real reason for excluding the
tribal peoples of Asia is not lack of conceptual clarity, but a political one. And therefore,
it is a political debate, which needs to focus on the reality of powerlessness of the tribal
peoples and their struggle for justice and the removal of the imbalance inherent in the
present national and international power structures. It is time to look at the mechanisms
perpetuating their subjugation and subordination within the countries in which they live,
as well as today's global economic system. Almost all tribal peoples and indigenous
peoples of Asia live in relatively remote areas with meagre resources.
During the colonial days, particularly as the British brought the railways to India and
started laying the rail tracks linking far away places cutting across forests, bridging rivers
and digging tunnels through hills, most of the forests in accessible areas on tribal lands
were taken away. The post-colonial governments of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have
followed the same policies. In Bangladesh, the Chakma and the Hajong tribes have been
uprooted from their homelands and majority Bengali people were settled in those areas.I
Sri Lanka, the state’s land acquisition policy has reduced the Vedda indigenous people to
a few hundred. In Thailand, the Royal Forest Department is in the process of removing
the tribal peoples from the traditional forest habitat in the name of preserving the
environment.
In Nepal, where the Indigenous/tribal people constitute a significant proportion of the
state’s population, they have been denied any say in the governance of the country. In
Myanmar (Burma), at the time of independence in the late forties, the federal government
agreed to provide full 'internal sovereignty' to all the ethnic communities. Yet within 15
years of independence, the government had decided to impose Buddhism as the national
religion and the Burmese language on all people. It initiated a programme of forced
integration of all ethnic people into the so-called mainstream Burmese culture by denying
them even the right to print books in their own languages. This policy has continued to
167

date.
In India, despite the protection provided by the Fifth and the Sixth Schedules of the
Constitution, the tribes have lost most of their land. Their rights to forests and forest
produce were converted into concessions by law. Gigantic factories, mines, mega power
projects and dams have been set up in their habitats. Millions of tribal people have been
uprooted without adequate compensation. This has been done by the government in spite
of having ratified ILO convention No. 107. Government of India has not signed ILO
convention 169 which provided greater protection to the tribes and indigenous peoples. In
northeastern India, the army has been let loose to crush the movements of the tribal
peoples for self determination. In the central Indian tribal belt, when the tribal people rose
in armed revolt during the seventies to reclaim their rights to land, water resources and
forests, they were brutally crushed. After about seven and a half decades of struggle, the
Adivasi peoples of the region known as, Jharkhand finally got a separate state. But it was
only a part of the area of the original homeland, the Adivasi inhabited contiguous areas
under the control of the states of Orissa and West Bengal was not included in the new
state of Jharkhand. As a result the Adivasis became a minority in Jharkhand state.
India has signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (CERD) in December 1968. However, the Indian government claims that
as there is no racial discrimination in India. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled
Tribes do not come under the purview of CERD Monitoring Committee. The government
of India claims that it submits the report to CERD Committee as a matter of ‘courtesy’.
During the meeting of he CERD Committee on February 26, 2007 the Indian delegation
even refused to recognise the ‘scheduled tribes’ as a ‘distinct group’.
India’s Tenth Five Year Plan 2002-2007 document notes, ‘Tribal communities continue
to be vulnerable even today, not because they are poor, asset-less and illiterate compared
to the general population; but often their distinct vulnerability arises from their inability
to negotiate and cope with the consequences of their integration with the mainstream
economy, society, culture and political systems, from all of which they were historically
protected by their relative isolation’ (Tenth Five-Year Plan 2002-2007. Planning
Commission, GOI, New Delhi, 2002 P.457)
This is bureaucratic double speak. While the Indian Planning Commission in its
document recognises the tribal people as a distinct group and points out that poverty,
malnutrition, mortality, illiteracy and unemployment are markedly higher among the
tribal peoples than among the rest of the populations of these states, the Indian
bureaucrats and the academic experts who represent India on the UN bodies deny the
same truth. The technocratic paradigm of development and modernisation sponsored by
the government and supported by the IMF and World Bank policies of economic
liberalisation and globalisation, is posing a major challenge to the traditional holistic
perception of the tribal peoples of their natural environment. The opening up of tribal
areas to multinational corporations, and the building of dams, mines, industries and roads
has already displaced more than 2.12 million tribal people in India. The so-called planned
development paved the entry of market forces and the formal state institutions in the
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tribal homelands. This has led to erosion of the authority of their tribal institutions and
practices and put at risk their community oriented values, collective identities, cognitive
heritage, distinguishing socio-cultural and linguistic frameworks and consensual decision
making processes. The state policies of assimilation and national integration, including
national education and linguistic policies, are all contributing to a kind of steady
ethnocide.
To conclude, we may state that the confusion over whether the tribes, scheduled tribes or
nationalities of the Asian countries can be termed indigenous or not has little to do with
conceptual clarity. It has to do with the politics of the dominant ruling classes. As the
struggles of the tribal peoples of Asia and the indigenous peoples of North and South
America, Australia and New Zealand are similar, and as the current efforts of the United
Nations is to institutionalise better provisions for the indigenous peoples, the tribal
peoples of the Asian region, (variously known as Adivasis, Janajatis, aborigines,
nationalities and tribes) should be regarded as indigenous in the context of international
instruments. It is true that a declaration is a very weak instrument and is not enforceable,
yet it has a moral force and does exert some amount of restraint on states.
Selected Bibliography
A.Webber, History of Indian Literature, Kegan Trench & Trubner Press, London, 1914
W.W. Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal (1886), Reprinted by Cosmo Publications, New
Delhi 1975
Ramayana Myth or Reality, H. D. Sankalia, PPH, New Delhi 1973
Martinez Cobo, José 1972. Preliminary report. E/CN.4/Sub.2/L.566,
June 1972. The final report was completed in 1983.
Sanders, Douglas 1989. Human Rights Quarterly, Vol.11, pp 406-433, Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Frances Stoner Saunders, The Cultural Cold War, The New Press, New York 2000
Ranjit Gupta, Subaltern Studies IV, Oxford University Press, New Delhi 1990
Department of Information & Culture, Government of West Bengal, India’s Struggle for
Freedom – An Album, Govt of West Bengal, Calcutta, 1987
169

Tribal Land Alienation in Maharashtra:
Legality, Illegality and Praxis
Pradip Prabhu
The Tribal People of Maharashtra
Maharashtra has the second largest tribal population in the country next only to that of
Madhya Pradesh. The tribal people, who number 8.58 milions, constitute 8.9% of the
state’s population. The major tribal communities are the Bhils, Gonds, Mahadev
Kolis, Warlis, Koknas and Thakars, while the Katkaris, Kolam and Madia Gonds are
classified as primitive tribes. 19 o the 47 ST communities have a miniscule population
of less than 1,000. The geographical distribution of the major tribal communities is
presented in Table below
Table 1
Name of tribe Total population % of tribal Geographical location
(in lakhs)
population
Bhil 18.18 21.2 Nandurbar, Dhule, Nashik
Gond 15.54 18.1 Gadchiroli, Chandrapur, Wardha, Nagpur,
Bhandara, Gondia, Yavatmal
Mahadev Koli 12.28 14.3 Ahmednagar, Thane, Nashik, Buldhana
Warli 6.27 7.3 Thane, Nashik, Mumbai
Kokna 5.72 6.7 Thane, Nashik
Thakar 4.88 5.7 Raigad, Thane, Nashik
Source: Collated from Census of India 2001
Though present in every district, six districts account for 54% of the tribal population,
officially called Scheduled Tribes. 1 The hilly tracts of the western Sahayadri range
(Nandurbar, Dhule, Nashik, Thane and Raigad districts); and the Satpuda and
Mahadeo hill ranges in central Gondwana (Gadchiroli, Chandrapur, Bhandara,
Nagpur, Amravati and Yavatmal districts) are considered the traditional homelands of
the tribal people. Nandurabar has the highest concentration of tribal people, while
Thane district has the highest population. The district-wise distribution is given in
Table 2.
Table 2
District ST population of total
district (lakhs)
ST as %age of total
district population
1 Nandurbar 8.59 65.53 5
2 Gadchiroli 3.72 38.31 8
3 Dhule 4.44 25.97 3
4 Nashik 11.94 23.92 7
5 Yavatmal 4.73 19.26 4
6 Chandrapur 3.75 18.12 1
7 Gondia 1.96 16.36 Nil
8 Thane 11.99 14.75 10
9 Amravati 3.56 13.68 2
10 Wardha 1.54 12.49 Nil
No. of Blocks
scheduled
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11 Raigad 2.69 12.19 Nil
12 Jalgaon 4.35 11.84 3
13 Nagpur 4.44 10.93 Nil
Source: Collated from Census of India 2001
The overwhelming majority, 96% of the tribal people, live in the rural areas and
constitute the poorest sections of society. High infant mortality, pervasive
malnutrition of women and children, hunger induced infant mortality, indicators of
high poverty levels, have been visible for generations, though the enormity of the
human catastrophe has found place in the media only in the recent past. What is of
concern is, the prevalence of malnutrition deaths in Thane district, next door to the
political, financial and industrial capital of Mumbai. The vast chasm, dividing the
tribal people from the rest of the population of the advanced industrialized state of
Maharashtra, is the cumulative result of land alienation, loss of forest habitat and
displacement, which individually and conjointly result in impoverishment and
continue to pose questions about the impact of land reforms in the tribal areas of the
state. 2
Tribal Land Today– A Overview
The tribal people are basically cultivators, over 90 % of male and 94% of female tribal
workers are engaged in cultivation and land related activities 3 . Out of the 94.7 lakh
operational land holdings extending over 209.24 hectares all over the state, 6.34 lakh
operational holdings are those of the tribals admeasuring 15.32 lakh hectares, tribal land
holdings being 6.7% of the total holdings and accounting for 7.3% of the land. 5.77 lakh
holdings covering 15.37 lakh hectares are individual holdings while 0.57 lakh covering
1.75 lakh hectares are collective holdings. 4 The overall landlessness of tribals in
Maharashtra is placed at a high 43%, with wide regional disparities as observable in
Table 3 below.
Table 3 : Land holding pattern (in %age)
ITDP area Landless Less than 1-2 ha. 2-3 3-5 5-10 ha. Greater
1ha.
ha. ha.
than 10 ha
Pen 68 7.36 14.4 4.48 3.84 1.6 0.32
Yawal 66 11.9 11.9 4.42 4.42 1.36 0.0
Shahapur 63 14.8 15.17 4.07 2.22 0.74 0.0
Pandharkawda 62 2.6 18.24 5.7 6.84 3.8 0.76
Taloda 56 12.76 18.92 5.72 3.96 1.76 0.0
Akola 51 10.78 22.54 7.35 5.88 1.96 0.49
Nagpur 51 10.29 22.54 7.84 5.88 1.96 0.49
Chimur 50 20 19 5.0 4.5 1.5 0.0
Nandurbar 47 13.25 23.85 8.48 5.83 2.12 0.0
Kinwat 45 10.45 27.5 7.7 6.6 2.2 0.0
Jawhar 44 14.0 24.08 9.52 5.6 2.24 0.0
Chandrapur 43 13.11 25.65 7.98 6.84 2.85 0.57
Dharni 43 7.41 23.94 8.55 10.83 5.7 0.57
Aheri 38 17.98 26.04 8.68 6.82 1.86 0.0
Nashik 38 18.6 22.32 9.92 7.44 3.1 0.62
Dahanu 36 30.72 24.96 6.4 1.92 0 0.0
Kalwan 32 20.4 25.84 10.88 7.48 2.72 0.68
Deori 32 26.52 26.52 8.16 5.44 1.36 0.0
Gadchiroli 28 20.88 30.24 10.08 7.92 2.16 0.72
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Bhamragad 18 14.76 35.26 13.94 13.12 4.1 0.82
Ghodegaon 15 18.7 30.6 16.15 11.9 5.95 0.85
Rajur 12 17.6 33.44 17.6 13.2 5.28 0.88
Source: Bench Mark Survey Data, Tribal Research and Training Institute, Government of Maharashtra, Pune 2003
Over 60% of the tribals in Pen block of Raigad dt, Yawal block of Jalgaon dt.,
Shahapur block of Thane dt. and Pandharkawda block of Yavatmal dt., are landless.
Landlessness is lower at 30% in Gadchiroli and Bhamragad blocks of Gadchiroli dt),
Ghodegaon block of Ahmednagar dt and Rajura block of Chandrapur dt. Proximity to
urban hubs, coupled with high vulnerability, has contributed to severe landlessness,
while the relative inaccessibility of Gadchiroli has relative “protection” to tribal lands.
Landlessness is highest among the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) of
Katkaris at 83% and Kolams at 63%, though only 17% of the Madia Gonds, also
PVTG are landless. Landlessness is intimately linked to malnutrition related deaths,
Nandurbar district being a case in point, as “72% of families, in which malnutrition
related deaths had occurred owned less than 3 acres, of which 40% were landless or
owned less than one acre”. 5 88% of families who suffered malnutrition related deaths
in Thane occurred were landless.
Majority of the tribals own poor quality land and cultivate coarse grains, particularly
millets with low yields. As lands are left fallow in rotation cycles, the size of
landholdings is not indicative of the actual cultivated area. 85.8% of the tribal land is
unirrigated, 6 a striking example being advanced Thane district reporting 1% irrigation
in Dahanu block, 1.4% in Jawhar block, 1.44% in Shahapur block and 2% in Pen of
the adjacent Raigad district. 7
Like other tribal areas, land and forests in Maharashtra belonged to the tribal
communities till the beginning of the nineteenth century.8 Colonial government
records refer to community ownership of land and administration by village elders
with usufructory rights for families.9 In the traditional system, rights of enjoyment of
land were enmeshed in communitarian systems of resource management, ownership
was construed as ‘security of access to land for sustenance needs’ and provided for
'particularities of requirements' within the 'generality of the community resources'.
‘Exclusive Title' as the adversarial domain of ownership was nonexistent. In popular
tribal consciousness, land was not a commodity to be bought or sold, but a person
belonged to land as habitat, history, geography and territory, by virtue of his ancestors
being in the given territory.10 Land had economic significance as a survival resource
and social value as the basis of belonging, a cultural importance as the link to
traditions, ethos and way of life.11 Consequently, land alienation also had systemic
implications - the individual or community being uprooted from the concrete
articulation of its consciousness and progressively decline into role dissonance in
economic, socio-political and cultural milieu and eventually to anomie.12 Hence the
angst of alienation cannot not be under-estimated as land is the vital 'permanent' link
between the generations and an embodiment of consciousness.
Most tribal land is individually owned, a result of 10 decades of colonial rule, which
suppressed community ownership. Community owned land is found in 383 sacred
groves in Vidarbha and the mountainous passes from the sea coast to the Sahyadris.
49% of the sacred groves are on revenue land, 12% on forest land, 32% on private
lands and 7% on temple lands and vary in size from a clump of trees to over 60
hectares, with an average size of 1.5 hectares. The burial ground groves or masutias
(eg. Bhairoba sacred grove) found in Mahadeo Koli and Kunbi villages, are owned by
the village, hamlet, clans, castes or individuals. 13
172

Land Alienation: Colonial and Early Independence
The colonial period triggered epochal changes in the land-man matrix and although
the freedom struggle envisaged emancipation of the toiling peasants as an important
task post indendence, the process of land reform of the early independence years,
continued to have the colonial matrix at its core and resulted in widespread
landlessness among the tribal people. The tribal –land matrix was turned on its head
by
• Land, from being a survival resource being made a saleable commodity;
• Legal status of land changed from community to privately owned;
• Subordination of woman; from being co-cultivator to worker with the male
being ‘owner’;
• Destruction of the protective umbrella of community management of land;
• Opening up of the area to outsiders enjoying the protection of the law;
• Legal space created for transfer or alienation of title;
• Drastic shift in the relevance of evidence from oral to documentary;
• Shift in the legal frame from harmony to adversarial jurisprudence;
• Court bias in assessing material evidence over seeking the truth;
• Emergence of a land owning class and a labouring class who toiled on the
land.
In the vortex of change brought on by colonial expansion into tribal homelands, the
people were alienated from their lands and forests and transformed into rack rented
tenants, serfs and slaves of multiple descriptions. Four pattern of land alienation are
identifiable, two related to the colonial period and two to the early post independence
period characterized by internal colonialism in the wake of elite led nation building
and development. The first patter was marked by ‘coerced’ land alienation, backed by
the law and the might of the colonial state as it appropriated tribal homelands
suppressing ‘traditional shifting cultivation’, appropriating community forests,
creating reserved forests, and transferring them to the timber trade for commercial
exploitation. This brutal land alienation ignited tribal uprisings across the country and
the colonial administration was forced to step back a little. The second pattern was
‘assented’ land alienation as the state focused on rent collection and turned a blind eye
to transfer of tribal land to money-lenders, traders and contractors, abetted by revenue
functionaries through the instrumentality of the courts. So extreme was the
exploitation that the Symington Commission (1938) appointed to examine the causes
for the widespread distress in Thane, Nashik and Dhule districts characterized the
conditions of the tribals as a 'blot on the administration' (14)
The third pattern, described as ‘state acquiesced’ alienation of tribal land, took place
in the period following independence. Rather than correcting feudal distortions in land
relations which had intensified during British rule, the post colonial state accepted
these crucial elements as an 'a priori' condition of land reform and the legal
framework for implementation of policies and programs in the tribal areas. It should
be noted that alienation of tribal land to the non-tribal took place within the legal
framework and this ‘abuse’ of law was with the collusion of the lower echelons and
the consent of the higher revenue bureaucracy. This situation continued,
notwithstanding the strong remarks of the Constituent Sub Committee in 1949, about
'the anxiety of the hill people about their land and their fear of exploitation’. (15) The
fourth pattern can be termed ‘internal colonization’, acquisition of tribal land in the
173

name of projects using the colonial Land Acquisition Act. The 28 th and 29 th Report of
the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes termed this form of
alienation as internal colonization of the tribal homelands (16). Carried out in the name
of development, it pushed the tribal people to the brink of survival, ruthlessly
destroying the forest people through an all out attack on their basic right to live and
work in the forest. (17).
Freedom Struggle and Land Reform
Land reforms were not an important agenda in the early years of the freedom
movement but gained in importance as the movement intensified and Mahatma
Gandhi felt the need for active support of the peasantry. Mobilization by the CPI
forged the peasantry it into a major pressure block. For the tribal people, freedom was
co-terminus with liberation from the money lender, zamindar and khot and restoration
of the commons, which remained at the core of their uprisings throughout the century.
The issue of land reform tentatively taken up at the Karachi Conference of the Indian
National Congress and expanded in the Faizapur Session of the Congress in 1936,
became an important slogan during the Home Rule Provincial Elections, expressed in
the slogan ‘land to the tiller’. In the adivasi belt it was “jyachya hathala mehnaticha
ghatta, tyachya nave jaminicha patta”. (‘ the evidence for the tenant to become the
owner of his land are the corns on his palms from his work in the fields’). The J.C.
Kumarappa Agrarian Reforms Committee looked at a wide range of land reform
measures and its recommendations became the basis of agricultural policy post
independence (18). Laws like the Bombay Money Lenders Licensing Act (1946), the
Bombay Agricultural Debtors Relief Act (1947), the Bombay Prevention of
Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act (1947) were passed during the
period of Home Rule, the Zamindari Abolition Act (1948) and the Bombay Tenancy
and Agricultural Lands Act (1948) followed in free India.
Tenancy Reform and Alienation
Notwithstanding the lofty goals of these agrarian legal reforms, the law still had to be
interpreted by the courts and implemented through the revenue bureaucracy. There is
where the difficulties began, because with very few exceptions, both the courts and
the administrators knew little or nothing about the tribals. They did not know their
languages, had little understanding of their mindset and had little sympathy for the
‘uncultured’ and ‘half naked’ denizens of the forest. They felt greater kinship with the
better off and ‘cultured’ land owning class.
There could be no real reform if the laws were to be mechanically interpreted and
implements. The new land laws continued replicate inequality and inequity as they
placed the tribal landless and the landlord on the same legal footing. Legal
presumptions and procedures of colonial origin were retained, thereby negating the
intention of land reforms. Courts bound by adversary jurisprudence pitched the ‘oral
evidence’ of the tribal against the documentary evidence of the landlord, which
naturally prevailed. Again with some exceptions, the lower revenue administration
actively colluded or connived with the landlords in their efforts to protect their
interests in land. As a result, a section of the tribal tenants were evicted from their
lands under the very provisions of the Tenancy Act (1948), which was designed to
protect them. Lands were 'resumed' by the landlords for ‘personal cultivation’, tenants
were forced to 'surrender' their lands on the grounds of a sudden ‘inability to cultivate'
174

or tenants’ names were deleted for ‘non-payment of rent’ to landlords who gave no
receipts. Tenants applied to the authorities saying that their names were wrongly
entered in the records or that they were not in possession of the land of the landlords.
However, the higher administration found little time to verify the ground realities or
communicate with the tribals and take effective steps to ensure not just effective but
efficacious implementation of tenancy reform.
Revenue records underwent a metamorphosis with the active connivance of the
talathis (village land officers), largely from peasant castes who chose to align with the
landed elites. Tenancy went underground, in the records and in fact, as tribal tenant
farmers became labourers with the landlords resuming their titles.(19) A detailed study
undertaken by the IAS Probationers in 1994 confirms that the incidence of tenancy
was very low or non-existent in the hilly areas. (20) Landlords, while living in very
distant towns and had other major trade or occupations, claimed that they lands were
'personally cultivated' in remote villages to deny tenancy rights to the tribals.
The 1971 census revealed in grim statistical detail the negative effects and relative
failure of tenancy reform. During the decade 1961-1971, when implementation of
tenancy legislation was at its peak, the number of tribal cultivators in Maharashtra
actually fell from 7.25 lakhs to 5.61 lakhs. The study of the IAS probationers
indicates that in Vidharbha only 17% of the land ownership went to the tenant, in
western Maharashtra only 33%. Their findings tell us that the bulk of the leased land
reverted back to the landlord as tenants ‘voluntarily’ surrendered lands either because
they were not in possession of their land on ‘tillers day’, the landlords had resumed
their land for personal cultivation or that tenancy could not be proved because tenants
had no lease deeds or rent receipts as most were poor and illiterate.(21)
Consequently, for a large section of expectant tribals, post independence land reform
laws were still born, as their premise, interpretation and implementation remained
imprisoned in the iron clad frame of the relationship between the landlord and the
tribal cultivator evolved during the colonial period. Instead of the tenant becoming the
owner of the land on ‘tillers day’, it resulted in the alienation of a good proportion of
the lands of the tribal tenants to four land owning elite groups. This form of alienation
of tribal land using tenancy legislation was common for the whole state with minor
variations. The first type of alienation of tribal land using tenancy reform was
widespread in the ryotwari areas and lands of tribal tenants were lost to the local land
owning peasant castes, like the Agris or Kunbis in Thane and Raigarh and the Gujjars
in Dhule, who moved during the colonial dispensation and consolidated land holdings
during successive land settlements as tribals burdened by debts arising out of
starvation... surrendered or abandoned lands and fled to distant villages.(22) In Dhule,
Thane, Nashik and Raigarh district, the original owner cultivators having lost their
lands, were absorbed as bonded labour on their own lands. (23) The second type of
land alienation through tenancy reform was transfer of land to the non-cultivating
landed gentry, like the Maldharis in Chandrapur and Ghadchiroli districts and the
Khots in Raigarh and Ratnagiri districts. Hereto the tribals were forced to surrender
lands in lieu of consumption loans or land cess. While the owners retained title as
absentee landlords, a few of the original cultivators were recorded as tenants but many
remained unrecorded. (24). The third type of land loss through tenancy reform was to
non cultivating non peasant castes, largely traders, merchants and contractors, who
entered the areas as shop-keepers, traders, timber contractors and alcohol vendors and
became large landlords with the of the colonial administration. Tribals surrendered
lands in lieu of petty loans or land cess and avoid harassment by the moneylenders.
Some were recorded as tenants on poorer lands while fertile lands remained in the
175

hands of landlords. (25) The fourth type of land alienation took place to members of
the lower nobility, officials in the army, and grantees of the political largesse were the
inamdars, izzafatdars, zemindars and faznadeiros who took payment of tithe for the
use of the lands and paid no cess to the state. The colonial administration converted
their political rights into feudal proprietary rights while the tribal cultivators were
reduced to rack rented tenant serfs. (26)
The absence of land lease records or written evidence of tenancy rights was a serious
handicap for the tribal cultivators. A good section of landlords never issued lease
deeds or receipts in the tribal areas. Notwithstanding the far reaching implications of a
judgment of the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal that "... the lease of a land may be in
writing or oral; an oral agreemental lease can also create tenancy rights in favour of a
person who cultivates the land” (27), virtually all unrecorded tenants lost their land.
Tenancy legislation was a relative failure in the case of the first category of landlords
mentioned above, as ownership remained with the non-tribals and tenants were
recorded to 'hired labour' in the revenue records. They were excluded from the gains
of the law and evicted. In the case of the second group of landlords which had
'resumed the lands for personal cultivation' (28) with tenants deemed as having
‘voluntarily surrendered lands’, tenants names having been ‘voluntarily withdrawn’ or
having ‘ failed to appear for tenancy hearings’(29) - in almost all the cases the
termination of the tribal- land nexus was done even without recourse to the legal
process. (30) In the case of the third and fourth group of landlords, land reform met
with failure because of the extensive practice of 'partially recorded tenancies' on poor
highlands and 'unrecorded tenancies' in the low lying paddy lands which was ensured
by a co-operative administration. All highlands even those under cultivation were
shown as varkad lands, with naturally growing grass, to which the tenant had no right
of tenancy.(31) Therefore, it is no surprise that the actual land that went to the tenants
constituted only 8% of the gross cropped area, although several estimates indicate that
the incidence of tenancy in western Maharashtra, for example, covered 50% the total
cultivated area.(32)
Ceiling Surplus Lands
The failure of tenancy reform to advantage the tribal people and give them livelihood
and food security began to show up in growing tribal dissatisfaction, particularly in
Thane, Nashik and the erstwhile Dhule districts. A way out of the cul de sac resulting
from the subversion of land reform and the increasing concentration of lands with the
rural elite was the Maharashtra Agricultural Land (Ceiling on Holdings) Act 1961. Its
effective operation was undermined by the large holders dividing up their lands
among heirs and relatives, which ranged from unborn children to pet dogs and cats.
Meanwhile, the prescribed ceilings were revised in 1972 and came into force in
October 1975.
According to the state government, 93,000 tribal families were granted 1.24 lakh
hectares of surplus land under the land ceiling law. But the study of the IAS
probationers says otherwise. The study indicated that 76% of the ceiling surplus lands
were located in distant villages and in the case of the hilly tribal regions, as high as
86.6%. Absentee landlords' who resided in towns with non-agricultural avocations
never visited the lands for years, but they were recorded ‘under personal cultivation’.
According to the study’s findings - the distribution of ceiling surplus land was largely
on paper, a large number of tribals had records but no land, while the surplus lands
were in the possession of unrecorded tenants, who stood to be dispossessed; a good
176

percentage of the lands were wastelands and unfit for cultivation and also tribals were
assigned lands in distant villages ensuring that the land remained with the landlord.
(32)
It can be reasonably concluded that the weakest feature of the ceiling programme was
its very marginal impact in improving the economic condition of the beneficiaries. (33)
The operation of the land ceiling law also confirms the fact that little land of the
absentee landlords actually went to the tenants under tenancy reform (34) and
considerable amount of land in every village remained in the possession of unrecorded
tenants.
Restoration Laws and Remedial Intervention
Though a section of tribals did get lands under the Tenancy legislation (35), alienation
continued apace through illegal entries in the mutation registers or permission for land
transfers of land to non tribal being granted freely by Collectors. (36) Restrictions were
imposed in 1966 on the transfer of tribal lands by the Maharashtra Land Revenue
Code to curb this malpractice and came into effect in August 1967. Notwithstanding
the prohibitions, the Collector/ Deputy Commissioner routinely granted permission.
Growing disaffection in the tribal areas prompted the Government of Maharashtra to
appoint a Committee under the Chairmanship of the state Revenue Minister in 1971.
The Committee to “Examine Difficulties Experienced by Scheduled Tribe Land
Holders/Cultivators in Respect of Their Lands in the Working of Certain Acts”
observed in its 1972 Report, that the ban on the permissions for transfer of lands was
being flouted by Collectors, freely and now they were being required to declare the
earlier orders of these officials illegal, at best a travesty of justice. (37)
According to the Committee’s recommendations the state enacted - Maharashtra Land
Revenue Code and the Tenancy Laws (Amendment) Act, (1974) and Maharashtra
Restoration of Land to the Scheduled Tribes Act (1975). The objectives of the
legislations were commendable, their implementation doubtful. Both measures acting
in tandem were intended to provide an ironclad protection to tribal land. The first
enactment amending the Land Revenue Code was routine and pertained to the
restoration of lands alienated to non tribals in contravention of the law but it raised the
question of the necessity of a law to remedy illegalities. The second legislation was
more revolutionary as it was premised on the restoration of land to the STs on the
principle of equity and went beyond the narrow confines of legality and provided for
restoration of even validly transferred tribal lands.
The Act was challenged but its validity was upheld by a three judges bench of the
Supreme Court in 1984. Justices O.Chinappa Reddy, A.P.Sen and E.S. Venkatramiah
in their judgment noted that “in the Constitution, the Scheduled Tribes, as a class
require special protection against exploitation," however, "in the past 40 years, most
of the tribal societies have come under attack by economically more advanced and
politically more powerful ethnic groups.... the greedy land grabber and exploiter ...
who infiltrated into tribal regions." This "triggered a struggle for land in which the
aboriginal tribesmen were usually losers, and deprived of their ancestral lands, turned
into impoverished landless laborers." The judgment further advanced the concept of
distributive justice as the "removal of economic inequalities and the rectifying of the
injustice resulting from dealings or transactions between the unequal in society.... It
177

means that those who have been deprived of their properties by unconscionable
bargaining would be restored their property...The impugned act is intended and meant
as an instrument for alleviating oppression, redressing bargaining imbalance,
canceling unfair advantage and generally overseeing and ensuring probity and fair
dealing." Unfortunately, the greater the radicalism of a law, the weaker the
implementation – is a truism that was amply borne out by the Tenancy, Ceiling,
Prohibitory and Restoration laws.
The government claims that of the 45,501 cases decided, 23,748 were in favour of the
tribals, wherein 22,556 tribals, i.e. roughly 50%, were been given possession of the
lands, till December 1993. The statistics however are silent on the total number of
tribal claimants, who were prima facie entitled to restoration of their lands which it is
estimated were likely to have been over 1.5 lakhs. The efficacy of the Restoration acts
can be gauged from field-based studies of the implementation of both the laws in the
Thane district of Maharashtra.
Thane district has several features which make it a good location for field research in
the area of land transfers and by extension alienation; its proximity to the finance
capital of the nation and the opportunities to invest undeclared wealth in land, its
proximity to one of the oldest centers of modern education and its attractiveness to
students to undertake research nearby, its proximity to the center of state power and
the political party enthusiasm to mobilize people to take advantage of grievances.
Notwithstanding all these propensities and potentialities, the picture in Thane district
is discomfiting to say the least. Conclusions about land reform in far flung districts,
away from the public eye, is left to the reader. The data for Thane district as a whole
and the four tribal majority blocks or talukas of the district is presented in the tables 2,
3 and 4.
Till 1992, 6087 cases were reported to have been filed of which 3,671 i.e. 54% of the
cases were dropped for unverifiable reasons, 1428 cases, i.e. approx 22% were
pending for 30 years on unstated grounds, investigations were conducted and were
decided in favour of the tribals in 1647 cases, i.e. approx 24% of the cases but all
these cases were challenged in the MRT, the High Court of Judicature at Mumbai and
finally in the Supreme Court. The authorities claim that possession was handed over
to 1566 persons on Court orders, but no verification of actual physical possession is
available. Another report says that at the end of a lengthy legal process 350 tribals,
i.e.5.77%, were to be restored their lands. Even in these cases whether physical
possession has actually been given remains to be confirmed.
Table 2 Restoration Cases Thane District XIV/75 & XXXV/74
No. Cases filed 3,325 2,762
Cases dropped 1,905 ( 37%) 1,766 (65%)
Cases pending 1,396 ( (41%) 32
Cases decided in Adivasis favour 689 (21%) 958 (34%)
Cases decision stayed 689 (21%) 958 (34%)
178

Cases possession to be handed over 618 948
Area of land restored (ha.) 1,127.19 1,268.96
There is no explanation why 54% of the cases were dropped although they were filed,
suo moto by senior revenue officials after establishing on the basis of records and
documents that prima facie there was a case. There is also no explanation why cases
have been kept pending for 30 long years. While there are no reported cases of actual
restoration of physical possession having been done by government officials, tribals
have taken possession of the land when the orders were in their favour in areas where
they are mobilized. These four tribal dominated blocks of Thane district have been the
sites of political mobilization from pre-independence days in what is popularly called
the Warli Uprising. (38)
Table 3 Restoration Cases in Tribal Dominated Blocks of Thane District.
Cases Under Act XIV/75 Dahanu Talasari Jawahar Mokhada
Cases filed 166 254 238 145
Cases dropped 72(43%) 137(54%) 152(63%) 25(17%)
Cases pending 18(11%) 36(14%) 6(3%) -
Cases untraceable 29(17%) 36(14%) - 69(47%)
Favour of adivasis 47(30%) 45(18%) 80(34%) 51(35%)
Possession handed over 47 42 73 51
Area restored (Ha) 33.15 25.72 05.60 138.47
Table 3 draws our attention to the most striking public secret that from a total of 703
registered cases, an overwhelming majority of the cases, i.e. 578 (80%) were dropped
or are pending or are untraceable. Under Act XIV/75, the figure is 37% + 41% = 78%
while for Act XXXV/74 the figure is 65%+1% = 66%. Surprisingly, the figure are
54%+ 14%+ 14% = 82%; and 87% +4%=91% for the two acts respectively with
respect to Talasari taluka, the heart of the Warli uprising.
The implications of a dropped case are of serious concern. In law, a dropped case
implies that it has been legally examined and has no merit. It is important at this stage
to recognize that an opportunity was created through the Restoration law for the tribal
who was legally wronged in the implementation of the Tenancy, Ceiling and
Prohibitory laws. A suo moto case was filed after prima facie legal grounds were
made out in the records. The tribal was not even aware of the proceedings being
initiated or being dropped. Hence the act of closing a case is a judicial act and will
operate as res judicata, meaning ‘already adjudged’ thereby effectively foreclosing
any effort to re-examine the matter. In so doing, the tribal tenants have been doubly
wronged through the fraudulent implementation of the Restoration act. The needle of
responsibility necessarily points to the revenue officials and functionaries.
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Examination of the case records shows that cases were closed on flimsy grounds. In a
large number of cases, the ALT (Trial Court for Restoration) did not refer to the 32G
proceedings at all to establish ownership. In others the validity/legitimacy of the
proceedings were not enquired into and accepted at face value. ALTs failed to enquire
or examine the validity of proceedings into cases of "voluntary surrenders", misuse of
the term ‘servant’ to denote ‘tenant’ to deny tenancy rights to tenants, or where
purchase prices fixed for an area was less than the tenants original holding.
A closer look at the record and proceedings also show disregard for the statements of
the tribals. The judgement of the Sub Divisional Officer of Dahanu on 31 st December
1981 in an appeal before him states in unambiguous language "The Assistant
Tahsildar has conducted the enquiry in the most callous manner. No permission under
relevant provision of law was obtained before the transfer." Another quote from the
Revenue Tribunal (39) "The ALT had passed orders without making any inquiry and
without recording the statements of the parties concerned.... the appellant was not
given any opportunity to be heard in the matter." Further, the ALT did not serve
notices to all interested persons to show cause.(40) The Tahsildar had dropped the case
as "the tribal was not available for statement." Proceedings were lodged under wrong
acts under XIV/75 or XXXV/74 and vice versa, on some occasions the enquiries were
made against null and void.(41) In fact, there are cases where case papers are not
available or where they have been washed away in the floods.(42) The Restoration
proceedings conducted by a large number of ALTs were totally to the detriment of the
rights of the tribal people despite the clear intention of the law to redress the wrongs
committed during the previous reforms proceedings and give the tribal people one
more opportunity to experience justice. However, the unholy alliance between the
landed interests and the revenue authorities ensured that the Restoration Acts were
effectively scuttled and worse still, that all avenues for legal redress for the aggrieved
tribals were closed.
Expectedly, non-tribals appealed to the MRT in the few cases where the lands were
restored to the tribals by the ALT. The higher authorities managed to find minor
discrepancies in the procedures at the lower level to repeal restoration orders. Some of
the grounds were frivolous, for example “The ALT had not enquired into the
'respondent's caste' whether he is a tribal (43). This was a minor procedural error,
capitalised on by Revenue Tribunal to dismiss the restoration order. (44) Other reasons
were like “The ALT did not get the tribals’ undertaking that he will cultivate the
restored land personally, hence Sec. 3(3) of the Act was contravened. Once again a
procedural error was used to dismiss the restoration order.
Table 4 based on the information provided by the Asst. Commissioner Tribal Welfare
(Thane) to the ST Commission during a visit to the district in 2005 is revealing. While
the inaccuracies apparent in Table 2 and 3 are attributable to the degree of disregard
of the officials to the necessity of land reform and restoration of tribal lands, their
inability to even distinguish cases registered under different enactments, namely
XXXV/74 and XIV/75, is evident in Table 4.
180

Table 4 Details of Restoration Cases in Thane District
Name of Taluka J V
a i
w k
a r
h a
a m
r g
a
d
W
a
d
a
Cases filled 312 364 179 411 373 281 1921
M
o
k
h
a
d
a
Area 317.69 261.86 505.24 185.61 116.32 29.15 1415.87
Pro tribal Orders 116 172 110 145 112 47 702
Area 310.14 218.63 505.24 185.61 109.53 26.68 1355.83
Cases rejected 196 192 69 266 261 234 1218
Area --- --- 242.04 --- --- -- 242.04
Cases disposed 116 172 110 145 112 47 702
Area 310.14 218.63 263.80 185.61 109.53 26.68 1114.39
Cases pending 1 10 --- --- 3 17
Area 7.55 43.23 --- --- 6/78 2.46 60.02
Cases land restored 1 10 --- ---- 3 3 17
Area 7.55 43.23 --- --- 6.78 2.46 60.02
Pending Cases 1 10 --- --- 3 3 17
Area 7.55 43.23 --- --- 6.78 2.46 60.02
Non restoration
reason
Court
Stay
P
a
l
g
h
a
r
D
a
h
a
n
u
Court
Stay
T
a
l
a
s
a
r
i
T
o
t
a
l
181

While the table appears to be recent, pertaining to 2005, the inaccuracies are glaring.
Table 2 indicates that 6087 restoration cases were filed while Table 4 reduces them to
1920 cases. The balance of 68% of the cases have vanished without trace.
Notwithstanding the inaccuracies, the data shows that only 36% of the cases were
decided in favour of the tribal. What is more startling is the fact that of the 702 cases
supposedly decided in favour of the tribals, land was reported to be restored in only
2.4% i.e. 17 cases. What has happened to the 97.6% of the cases? The biggest blow is
that even in the 17 cases, i.e. 0.89 percent of the 1920 cases filed, restoration of
possession has been stayed by the Court.
Revenue Bureaucracy Subverting Land Reform
Studies undertaken by the Kashtakari Sanghatna, a tribal peoples organization active
in the tribal tracts of the district, have revealed that by and large adivasis were
unaware of these acts or the procedures. Even the judicial member of the Tribunal,
S.G. Borde, was unaware of the Acts, and passed an order (which was subsequently
changed) on the basis of the previous Land Revenue Code. Cases were filed suo-moto
by officials, with the adivasi kept unaware and bereft of legal assistance. Ex-parte
orders were passed when the tribal missed a date though he otherwise faithfully
attended the court. In one case (45) the authority observed that, "the tribal had no proof
that the order was not served on him", consequently an appeal against the ex-parte
orders was not upheld. Non-tribals engaged lawyers, in contravention of the Acts, but
records were removed to suppress this fact. Dates of the decisions were not
communicated to the tribals while non tribals were intimated in advance. Non-tribal
traders like Hari Gulabdas Wani produced tribal certificates (46) and tenancy orders
were modified to allow land being shown as transferred under the Ceiling Act,
rendering restoration ineffective. (47) In one case, a non-tribal transferred land to a
tribal mistress to make restoration inapplicable. Defective consolidation resulted in
alienation of tribal lands that were excluded from the purview of the act. Restoration
was denied as the tribal was ignorant of the land survey number notwithstanding a
Court judgment that unequivocally stated that, "the fact of cultivation cannot be
denied by their failure to give exact area and survey numbers of lands." (48)
The discussions made about make it clear that the failure of tribal land reform can be
laid squarely at the feet of the Revenue bureaucracy? The legislature, under pressure
from the electorate, sought to remedy land alienation, but the revenue bureaucracy
effectively circumvented the law. When confronted with the emptiness of its laws, the
legislature falls into the trap of colonial governance, it cannot not trust democracy or
the citizens it swears by and transfers the task of rectifying a legal wrong precisely to
the functionaries who were guilty of the wrong. Is this by default or by design? Only
history will tell.
One of the major causes for the failure of land reform has been the co-optation of the
lower revenue bureaucracy by the rural elites. In every case of progressive land
legislation, their complicity is evident, as they spare no efforts to circumvent their
own acts of commission or omission. Also, the legislature has been slow to rectify
anomalies in both enactments, effecting remedies five years later. It is like locking the
stable after the horse has bolted. The tribals are compromised further as the legislators
182

introduce loopholes in the law under the pressure of the landed elites. Land reform
laws become like other pro poor statutes, devoid of meaning.
By way of Closing a Painful Chapter of Tribal History
It would be in the order of things to conclude with a quotation from the Planning
Commission appointed ‘Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas - "
The basic threat to the tribal existence emanates from land alienation. For the tribals,
traditional land holding system was the basis of their polity, economy and culture...
Traditionally in most tribal areas individual rights of enjoyment of land and land
based resources are embedded in communal systems of access to and management of
resources which were systematically suppressed during colonial rule. But the very
distortions introduced by the colonial government were accepted as the crucial
elements of the legal framework for implementation of policies and programs in the
tribal areas. Paper laws of the colonial dispensation were given the place of pride over
the laws on the ground by which people lived. The significance of tribal upsurges in
diverse forms which have taken place from time to time during the last one century,
for protection of resource based survival systems, not only as biological entities but
also as social entity, in specific historico-ecological niche, has not been adequately
appreciated. On the other hand, paper laws of the past have been used as an alibi to
deny the customary rights of the people and in the process accommodative
compromises have been made with the feudal pretensions in some areas and factional
elites have been promoted in others... The study team has lighted another interesting
fact. It has brought out that the land reform (without first removing the colonial
distortions) has promoted a neo-feudalisation process where the tribals are less
assertive and democratic mobilization where they are conscious of their historical
rights”. (49)
We have come full circle. Every single Commission, whether of the state or the center
and legislatures of the states and the center, without exception harp on the same
theme. Land alienation rings the death knell for the tribal people. Protecting the tribals
from ethnocide is the primary objective of every single piece of land reform law since
independence. Yet every recommendation appears to have been made to be forgotten,
every law made to be subverted, by design or by default. No wonder that the call of
the ultra left Maoist party resonates in the hearts of the tribals and large tracts of their
homelands are the staging grounds for the party guerillas who wage a war against the
state. I end with a quote from the Chairperson of the Planning Commission, Expert
Group on Development Issues, dealing with Discontent, Unrest and Extremism -
“Unmet just demands may provoke the sufferers to use force, whether for the
occupation of land or for exercising rights …The ruling establishment cannot avoid
taking responsibility for its failure to read the writing on the wall”. (50) Will the ruling
elites sit up and listen ?
1. Census of India 2001, Government Press, New Delhi
2. Prabhu Pradip, Legally Looted and Cheated – Land Reforms & Tribals in Maharashtra,
Monograph, NIRD, Hyderabad.
3. Census of India 2001.
4. Pradip Prabhu, op cit
183

5. Tribal Research and Training Institute, Malnutrition Related Deaths of Tribal Children in
Nandurbar District, Monograph, Government of Maharashtra, Pune 2002
6. Report of the Agricultural Census, Department of Agriculture and Co-Operation, Government of
India, New Delhi, 1990-91
7. Tribal Research and Training Institute-Pune, Benchmark Survey, 2003
8. Evidence of the same is found in the different survey and settlement reports of the various
districts. e.g. Report by Captain Wingate, Revenue Survey Commissioner, on the plan of Survey and
Assessment most suitable to the province of Khandesh and also Instructions issued on the subject by
Government, Selections from Government Records, No. 1, Old Series, Bombay, 1851
9. The earliest records pertaining to the pattern of land ownership among the tribal peoples, like the
Gazetteers prepared by the British, refer to the communal ownership of land in the tribal communities,
for example Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency Vol XIII, Thane (Gazetteer), Central Government Press,
Bombay, 1882.
10. This is particularly visible in Bihar, where the Sasandhris, large stones placed in the memory of
the ancestors were not only the indications of a tribal habitation but also the 'title deeds' of the
community.
11. Report of the Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas, Chairman B. K. Roy
Burman, Government of India, New Delhi, 1987
12. The anomie that follows the loss of land was reflected immediately in the very high incidence of
'suicides' among the displaced tribals in the Dapcheri Milk Project in Thane. The explanation that was
forwarded by most of the tribal people without exception was - 'what happens to a tree when you cut its
roots? It dies. The same is happening to the older people of the village. They prefer death to the
debilitating anomie." This concept has been explored at some length in Prabhu P. and Suresh V
Transience and Transition in Tribal Societies, ISISD, Madras, 1986.
13. Roy Burman JJ, Sacred Groves Among Communities, Mittal Publications, New Delhi 2003
14. D. Symington, Report of the Aboriginal and Hill Tribes of the partially excluded areas in the
Bombay Presidency, Central Government Press, Bombay, 1938.
15. Report of the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks, Chairman Verrier Elwin, New
Delhi 1960
16. 28th.Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Government of
India, New Delhi, and 29th. Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes,
Government of India, New Delhi
17. Fernandes W and Ganguly T, (eds) Questions on Development, Displacement and
Rehabilitation, Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, 1989, pg.6
18. National Commission on Agriculture, 1951, Government of India Press, New Delhi 1951, Vol.
15, para 65.2.14
19. Advocate Brian Lobo has made a careful analysis of the judgments and orders of the Sub
Divisional Officer’s Court, the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal and the High Court. His study is
published in ‘Land Reforms in Maharashtra’ in Shah G. & Shah D. C. (eds) Land Reforms in India,
Volume VIII: , Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2002, pp 247-294
20. Land Reforms in Maharashtra, An Empirical Study, Lal Bahadhur Shastri Academy of
Administration, Mussoorie, 1994,pg. 18
21. Land Reforms in Maharashtra, An Empirical Study, op cit pg.6
22. When tracing their ancestry, a number of tribal villagers in Thane District have mentioned their
ancestral villages to be in distant talukas. On probing further, these families mention that their
forefathers, not so far ago had fled the village due to the tyranny of the local landlord and abandoned
the land because of inability to pay loans taken to stave off starvation.
23. Report of the Depressed Classes and Aboriginal Tribes Committee, Chairman, O.H.B. Starte,
Bombay, 1930 also see Papers relating to the Revision Survey Settlement of the Taloda taluka of the
Khandesh Collectorate, Selections from Government Records, No. 387, New Series, Bombay official,
1899, p.9.
24. B. H. Powell, The Land System in British India, Vol. II pg. 456 and Vol. III pg. 28
25. Parulekar G, Jeva Manoos Zaga Hoto,(Marathi) Peoples Publishing House 1960 and Parulekar
S, Revolt of the Warlis, Peoples Publishing House, Bombay 1947
26. B. H. Powell, The Land System in British India, Vols. 1 & II
27. Case No. 237/84 heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court
Records.
28. In Maharashtra alone 73,546 landlords resumed their lands for personal cultivation. See Land
Reforms in Maharashtra, An Empirical Study, op cit p.23. There is however no explanation for the
landlords sudden love for agriculture, particularly when these lands were with the tenants for
184

generations, except perhaps that they saw the imminent likelihood of the land being transferred to the
tenants.
29. The Report of the National Commission on Agriculture 1976, Part XV, refers to 1 million
tenants who lost land rights due to voluntary surrender, non-appearance, failure to pay installments in
time. The Reports also mentions of 0.85 lakh cases of tenants whose lands were resumed by the
landlords and 1.21 lakh cases of voluntary surrender of lands by tenants to landlords. If the unofficial
data collected with respect to the tribal tenants in Dahanu taluka of Thane is any indication, then this 1
million tenants would include a very large proportion of tribals.
30. For extensive information on the effects of the Tenancy Legislation on tenants, see, Report of
the Committee appointed by the Government of Maharashtra, for Evaluation of Land Reforms, Central
Government Press, Bombay, official, 1974.
31. ibid
32. Land Reforms in Maharashtra, An Empirical Study, op cit p.6
33. ibid pg. 10
34. Chhatrapati Singh in his article 'Rehabilitation and the Right to Property' pp. 97-98 in Fernandes
W and Thukral E. G., (eds) op cit makes an interesting observation. He speaks of two types of citizens
in this country. The first category gets rights to land if they lived on it for a certain period of time or
have tilled it or cultivated it, they come under the Tenancy laws. On the other side are a very large
number of tribals and forest dwellers who come under the forest laws that do not give any right of
ownership to the cultivator even after several generations of occupancy and cultivation.
35. The overall progress indicates that in only 33% of the recorded tenancy cases, did the tenants
become owners of their land. In the Central Provinces the percentage was still lower at 11.8%. While
these percentages refer to the general tenant population, the percentage in the case of the tribals would
be a fraction of even these percentages, See Land Reforms in Maharasntra, An Empirical Study, op cit
p.24
36. See Report of Committee to Examine Difficulties Experienced by Scheduled Tribe Land
Holders/Cultivators in respect of their lands in the Working of Certain Acts, Chairman H. G. Vartak,
Government Press, , Bombay, 1972
37. In fact there are two important Reports that present the situation of land reforms with respect to
the tribals namely The Report of Committee to Examine Difficulties Experienced by Scheduled Tribe
Land Holders/ Cultivators in respect of their lands in the Working of Certain Acts 1972 and Report of
the Committee appointed by the Government of Maharashtra, for Evaluation of Land Reforms 1974.
38. Parulekar G, op cit
39. Case No. 102/80 heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court
Records.
40. Case No. 235/77 heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court
Records.
41. Case No 109/79 and Case No. 110/79) heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue
Tribunal, Bombay, Court Records.
42. Case heard and disposed by the Addl. Commissioner at Appeal Desk/ WTN/4495.
43. Case No. 177/79, heard and disposed off by the Sub Divisional Officer, Dahanu, Court Records.
44. Case Nos. 131/80, 125/80, 114/80, 119/80, 130/80, 91/80, 71/80, 66/80, 80/80 heard and
disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court Records.
45. Case No. 56/77 heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court
Records.
46. Case No. 121/77 heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court
Records.
47. Case No. 157/77 heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court
Records.
48. Case No. 237/84 heard and disposed of by the Maharashtra Revenue Tribunal, Bombay, Court
Records
49. Report of the Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas, op cit pp 1-3
50. Bandhopadhya D, Rural Unrest, Yojana, New Delhi, February 2007
185

Legality and Pragmatism
Usha Ramanathan
A re-inventing of the Constitution has been underway for some time now. The
Emergency (1975-77) may be seen to constitute a breakaway moment in constitutional
history when the wrongs of the state raised questions about the state’s treatment of the
rights of the people. The image of the judiciary had suffered an erosion during the
Emergency, especially after its infamous verdict in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla, 1
where the Supreme Court had endorsed unfettered powers over the lives and liberties of
the citizenry when confronted with mass arrests of political dissidents and opponents of
the regime. Perhaps, in part out of penitence and partly out of recognition of the
irrelevance of rights in the lives of large masses of the population, and finally, in an effort
that helped to shore up the declining reputation of the judiciary, public interest litigation
(PIL) was devised by judges in the Supreme Court. In its early years, PIL gave life and
texture to the rights found in the text of the Constitution. The legitimacy that this
jurisdiction invested in the courts, inevitably altered the nature of judicial power, and
expanded into the power to pronounce on rights, and wrongs. Legality and pragmatism
are two notions through which the treatment of rights, wrongs, remedies and sanctions
have been mediated, and they will be explored to attempt an understanding of that which
has happened to constitutional rights and wrongs.
Legality
Legality is a flexible notion.
It is possible that legality is derived from enacted law which may shift an event from
legality to illegality, and back. So, for many years after the Plantations Labour Act was
enacted in 1951, to conform with the law, a plantation owner would have had to ensure
that there were no children below 12 years employed on his plantation. In 1966, the
National Commission on Labour found that plantations where migrant labour abound, do
in fact employ children of less than the age that the law permitted. In 1986, as part of the
process of rationalising the law on child labour in the matter of age and hazardous
occupations, the prohibition for employment of child labour in plantations was removed
from the law. 2
Legality may depend on an exercise of state power. It may be power exercised under a
statute, as, when land is 'acquired' under the Land Acquisition Act 1894, the rights and
interests of any 'person interested' in the land is reduced to a 'claim', and ownership, and
often possession, are passed on to the acquiring agency, who may either receive or pass
on the rights over the land.
1 Supreme Court Cases 1976 vol II p 521
2 Section 24, Child Labour Act 1986. For a discussion, see Usha Ramanathan, “on Engaging with the Law:
Revisiting Child Labour” in (1998) vol 40 Journal of the Indian Law Institute, pp.263-283 at 271.
186

It may be by executive practice, possibly entrenched in rules or guidelines, possibly
sanctified by a judicial decision. There are conditions that the police may impose while
permitting a procession or a demonstration, or permission may be refused by the police.
This is an exercise of executive power which would determine the legality of various
forms of protest.
Courts may work, and re-work, the contours of legality. In 1987, the Supreme Court held
that the “State government also stands prohibited to transfer by way of lease or any other
form known to law, government land in Scheduled Areas to non-tribal person, be it
natural or juristic person except to its instrumentality or a co-operative society comprised
solely of tribes...”. 3 This was because, “if the Cabinet form of government would transfer
the land of the government to non-tribals peace would get disturbed, good governance in
Scheduled Areas would pass into the hands of non-tribals who would drive out the tribals
from Scheduled Areas...and slowly and imperceptibly, but surely, the land in the
Scheduled Area would pass into the hands of the non-tribals. The letter of law would be
an empty content”, and the course of justice would be deflected, “denuding, (the tribals)
of the socio-economic empowerment and dignity of their person”. 4 In 2001, another
bench of the Supreme Court thought differently and expressed strong reservations about
the Samatha opinion while permitting disinvestment of the Bharat Aluminium Company
Ltd. in Chattisgarh against a challenge that this would amount to handing over tribal land,
which had been taken over about two decades prior to the disinvestment, to a private
investor.
These are some shades of legality.
Pragmatism
The practice of pragmatism has exerted a significant influence on legality. Pragmatism
may be about inducting the art of the possible into law-making and justicing. This would
involve identifying the problem and seeking not a solution but an improvement over the
situation as it exists.
In 1981, the Special Bearer Bonds (Immunities and Exemptions) Act was legislated by
Parliament. This Act conferred immunities and exemptions on holders of black money,
with the stated intention of inducing them to re-introduce the money from the parallel
economy to the control of the Reserve Bank and the taxation laws. However, “regrettable
or unfortunate it may be,” as the Supreme Court commented while upholding the
constitutional validity of the provisions of the 1981 Act, “ they had to be enacted by the
legislature in order to bring out black money in to the open and canalise it for productive
purposes.” 5 “The problem of black money,” the court said, “was an obstinate economic
problem which had been defying the government for quite some time and it was in order
3 Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1997) 8 SCC 191 at 259. Tribal land, constituted into `scheduled
areas’ or `agency areas’, is governed by exceptional rules relating to transfer of land; and transfer of land in
a tribal area to a non-tribal is, as a rule, prohibited, or at least restricted, by law. This case was a reassertion
of this principle, and prohibited the state from taking over land to hand over to a non-tribal for
mining or any other purpose.
4 Id. at p.259, para 94.
5 R.K.Garg v. Union of India (1981) 4 SCC 675 at p.704, para 18.
187

to resolve this problem that, other efforts having failed, the legislature decided to enact
the Act, even though the effect of its provisions might be to confer certain undeserved
advantages on tax evaders in possession of the black money.” 6
In another context, pragmatism may be a purposive exercise, where, having identified the
end sought to be achieved, ways may be devised to reach that end. This may involve the
prioritising of rights, interests and claims. It may then involve a decision on how the law
will be used, interpreted, marginalised or stepped past. Pragmatism may have an effect on
legality, either by the way legality is addressed, or ignored.
Public Interest Llitigation
Public interest litigation (PIL) has impacted on legality and pragmatism in at least two
ways. The first is the focus that PIL introduced on constitutional rights and those that the
Constitution had not reached, for reasons of indigence, illiteracy, ignorance of rights and
the incapacity fostered by powerlessness. In the early years of PIL, classes of persons
whom constitutional rights had not reached, and who could not reach them, were
identified; such, for instance, were bonded labour, pavement dwellers, child labour,
exploited migrant and contract labour, children of women in prostitution; under-trial
prisoners and convicts in uninhabitable jails; the mentally ill in jails and other
institutions; children in custodial institutions; women in protective and corrective
institutions and victims of excesses of the state as were those who died in the Arwal
firing, those displaced (largely tribals), to make way for power plants and other projects,
and tribals injured or killed in the Balliapal army firing range. Throughout this phase, a
significance was imparted to constitutional rights, and their relevance to all persons was
asserted. The law and executive action, indolence and abuse were considered within the
terms set by the Constitution; and the rights in the Constitution were expansively
understood. This is the period when rights to livelihood, dignity, health, and against
hunger, were read into Article 21, which guarantees the right to “life” and personal
liberty. In later years, the right to education, for instance, was read into the right to life. 7
The relationship between morality, constitutionalism and the court's expanded
understanding of its role led inexorably to a broadening of the power of the court; and
this is the second way in which PIL has left its impression on legality and pragmatism.
There are contradictions that have emerged between constitutional rights and the
imperatives imposed by pragmatism and the varied meanings given to legality. The rest
of this essay sets out the scheme of rights and obligations that are in the Constitution,
explores the ways in which legality is worked, and illustrates how pragmatism could have
the effect of rendering legality redundant. In this rendition, PIL forms the backdrop, and
the court is the institution through which the variations of legality and pragmatism are
played out.
6
Id. at pp.704-705, para 18. For another illustration of this aspect of pragmatism, see supra note 2.
7
In 2002, the Constitution was amended to include Article 21-A, which enunciates a fundamental right to
education.
188

An inclusive agenda
It is possible to read the Constitution of India as an inclusive document. It speaks in the
name of `We, the people of India’. The right to equality, life and personal liberty, against
arbitrary arrest and against exploitation are constitutionally recognised in every person,
citizen and non-citizen alike. No citizen is to be discriminated against on the basis of their
religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, nor shall they be denied access to public spaces
as are shops, restaurants, nor to wells, tanks, bathing ghats and places of public resort,
which are wholly or partially maintained by state funds or which are dedicated to the use
of the general public. 8 This prohibition would not extend to special provisions being
made for women and children, or provision made for the advancement of any socially
and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes. 9 There is to be equality of opportunity in matters of public employment for all
citizens, while exceptions may be permissible, when they are based on domicile, or are in
the nature of affirmative action; and an exception covers religious or denominational
institutions which may constitutionally continue with the criterion of professing a
particular religion or belonging to a particular denomination to be eligible for being
inducted. 10
Untouchability is outlawed. 11 All citizens have the right to freedom of speech and
expression; to assemble peaceably and without arms; to form associations and unions; to
move freely throughout the territory of India; to reside and settle in any part of Indian
territory and to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.
These rights are hemmed in by `reasonable restrictions’ but, as there is a need to
continually assert, it is the rights that are fundamental; the restrictions constitute the
exception. 12 The right of all persons to freedom of conscience, free profession, practice
and propagation of religion and the freedom to manage religious affairs is guaranteed.
The right of any section of citizens to conserve their distinct language, script or culture is
assured, and the right of linguistic or religious minorities to establish and administer
educational institutions of their choice is asserted.
There are fundamental rights, and they are justiciable, that is, the courts are tasked with
ensuring that any violation of these rights is swiftly redressed. The Constitution also sets
out an inclusive agenda for the state to pursue in the `Directive Principles of State Policy’
which were not intended to be enforced through the courts, but which were “nevertheless
fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the state to apply
these principles in making laws”. 13 So, the state is to promote “a social order in which
justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national
life”. 14 All “citizens, men and women equally, (are to) have the right to an adequate
8 Article 15
9 Article 15(3) and (4)
10 Article 16
11 Article 17
12 K.G.Kannabiran, The Wages of Impunity, 2004, Orient Longman, Delhi, p.38.
13 Article 37
14 Article 38
189

means of livelihood”. 15 The “ownership and control of the material resources of the
community are (to be) so distributed as best to subserve the common good”. 16 The state is
to ensure that “the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration
of wealth and means of production to the common detriment”. 17 The “health and strength
of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not (to be) abused and …
citizens … not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or
strength.” 18 Among the other directives issued to the state is found the mandate to
“secur(e) the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of
unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved
want”. 19 A living wage, and humane conditions of work 20 are state responsibilities even
as the “state shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of
its people and the improvement of public health as amongst its primary duties”. 21 In
1978, the post-Emergency Parliament introduced an express imperative that the “state
shall, in particular, strive to minimize the inequalities in income, and endeavour to
eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, not only amongst individuals
but also amongst groups of people residing in different areas or engaged in different
vocations”. 22
`Scheduled areas’ and `tribal areas’ are marked out for a distinct status in law and the
Constitution; 23 and restrictions on the sale or transfer of tribal land to non-tribals, and the
Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, are illustrative of laws that are
aimed at protecting tribal interests.
Those exploited, those excluded from the economy, those discriminated against, and
those with less than equal capacity to partake in the polity are deliberately drawn into the
constitutional scheme. The Constitution of India is an accessible document, and
reproducing its provisions could seem an extravagance. Yet, recent experience in the
working of the Constitution suggests that collective amnesia has clouded the context – of
inequality, oppression and inclusiveness – that the Constitution sought to address. If it is
not amnesia, may be it is that the Constitution is being reinvented to become consonant
with current priority, and preference, and even prejudice.
In the early decades of the Constitution, the welfare state was charged with accounting
for those marginalised by the processes of development, and those that development did
not reach. It was in the late seventies and early eighties that the Supreme Court devised
public interest litigation (PIL), which was in express recognition of the chasm that had
come to exist between masses of people and their rights. So, bonded labour, contract
15
Article 39(a)
16
Article 39(b)
17
Article 39(c)
18
Article 39(f)
19
Article 41
20
Article 43
21
Article 47
22
Article 38(2). For an exhaustive list of fundamental rights and directive principles, see Parts III and IV of
the Constitution.
23
Articles 244 and 244-A, and the Fifth and Sixth Schedules to the Constitution.
190

labour, undertrial prisoners, child labour, women in custodial institutions, the
institutionalised mentally ill, interstate migrant workers, the starving…. became the
constituency of the court, and the constitutional text as expanded by interpretation
became the basis of judicial action. As executive inefficiency and apathy stood revealed,
and as `public interest’ spread itself to reach corruption and abuse of power in high
places, any challenge that there was to the court, of having departed from its traditional,
adversarial territory, was marginalised. An irreproachability settled on the court, with
`social activists’, non-governmental organisations including environmental groups,
journalists, lawyers and academics becoming participants in this new found space, where
any bona fide person could take matters of public interest to court, while sidestepping
complex court procedure.
The expansive understanding of the court’s power to intervene in the lives of people not
directly before it was essential to re-introducing the idea of the Constitution as an
inclusive document in the context of the many who had been forgotten and excluded. The
fluidity of the nature of judicial power, however, meant that the power grew with
restraints on it that could only be self-imposed by the courts. The `public interest’ was
also a matter for judicial determination.
In this context of `public interest’, judicial power and executive non-performance,
notions of illegality and pragmatism have acquired a range of meanings. Demolition of
the dwellings of the urban poor, and project displacement have been grist to the judicial
mill, and two strands from the experience in these two areas will serve to explain how
these notions find their place in legal and judicial practice.
Illegality
The demolition of jhuggis in Delhi since the turn of this century illustrates graphically the
construction of illegality and the resulting exclusion. An abbreviated chronology of the
relationship between law and shelter would include 1956, when the Slum Areas
(Clearance and Improvement) Act was enacted. This law was conceived as a response to
the unsanitary and unsafe conditions of housing, and placed a responsibility on the state
to `clear’ or `improve’ such housing. In 1957, to enable the planned development of the
city, the Delhi Development Act was passed. In 1962, the Master Plan of Delhi was
devised as required by the 1957 statute, which included integrated housing schemes for
the `economically weaker sections’. In 1990, the Master Plan was overhauled. The mass
demolitions in Delhi in 1976, including the infamous Turkman Gate bulldozing, are part
of the record and the lore surrounding the Emergency. 24 In 1990, in the brief period that
the V.P.Singh government was in the seat of government, there was an attempt to invest
jhuggi dwellers with a mark of their residence, in recognition of their right to be
accounted for by the state in any housing or resettlement plan. In 1993, an order of the
Delhi High Court directed that jhuggi dwellers being resettled should not be given
24
“Shah Commission’s Findings – V: The Wrecking of Delhi” in Economic and Political Weekly, June 24,
1978, pp.1019-21.
191

leasehold rights but only a licence, 25 to prevent any transaction of sale or transfer by the
resettled persons. Demolitions occurred sporadically in the 1990s, and, within the limited
commitment that the government undertook, resettlement was done.
It was in 2000, while hearing a PIL on solid waste disposal in the metropolises, that the
Supreme Court struck a lethal blow on the lives of the urban poor. “Large areas of public
land,” the court exclaimed, were being “usurped for private use free of cost” by slum
dwellers. It seemed that it was “slum creation” and not “slum clearance” that was
happening in Delhi. The “promise of free land, at the taxpayers’ cost, in place of a
jhuggi” was attracting “land grabbers”. And, in words that have acquired infamy,
rewarding an encroacher on public land with an alternative free site was like giving a
reward to a pickpocket. 26
It was a short hop to the November 29, 2002 words of the Delhi High Court when it dealt
a body blow to “encroachers” and those who “squatted and trespassed” on public land.
“Encroachers and squatters on public land should be removed expeditiously without prerequisite
requirement of providing them alternative sites before such encroachment is
removed or cleared,” the court decreed. The state had, doubtless, failed in its assumed
task of creating housing that the Economically Weaker Sections (`EWS’) could access,
but that was no reason to “encourage dishonesty and violation of law”.
The language of encroachment, trespass and squatting have replaced altogether the
acknowledgment in the Pavement Dwellers case that where the urban poor lives is linked
to the capacity to earn and survive. In 1984, even when the court did not direct an
embargo on forced evictions, it was moved to observe that, empirically it was possible to
establish, people live in slums or pavements because they have work that the city offers
them and “there is nowhere else to live”. That they choose a pavement or a slum in the
vicinity of their work, is determined by the costs of money or time. That “to lose the
pavement or the slum, is to lose the job”.
In 1990, when the government was not making villains of the urban poor, the Law
Commission thought to work out some legislative protection “to ensure that they are not
evicted without offering them an alternative facility unless it is virtually impossible to do
so”. The 138 th Report of the Law Commission recommended enacting a law that would
put the brakes on forced eviction, while making it incumbent on the “local authority to
provide alternative site, accommodation or facility” to those evicted. But this intent
vanished without a trace when the V.P.Singh government fell from electoral grace.
So, there is no law assisting the urban poor towards legality of any sort. That is not all.
There are many deeds that are done while evicting the slum dweller which are not illegal
because there is no law that declares it so, and because of the influence of the perception
of illegality of the dwellings and dwellers being evicted.
25 Civil Writ No. 267 and CM No. 464 of 1993 in the Delhi High Court, cited in the Draft Annual Plan
2000-01 of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, JJ Department, p.8.
26 Almitra H. Patel v. Union of India (2000) vol 2 Supreme Court Cases p.679 at 685.
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• Bulldozers and short notices or none at all, are synonymous with urban evictions.
Forced evictions defy international law. Yet, because there is no domestic law
outlawing bulldozing and razing to the ground, and there is no law that prescribes
a process (except where the Public Premises Act is invoked, where there is at least
a procedure), the slum dwellers could wake up any day to demolition.
• There is no law that imposes a responsibility on the demolishing agency to protect
the person and property of the slum dweller. This means that loss or damage to
property or person is hardly ever challenged, when there is any recompense for
the loss. 27
• Slum demolition is a law and order exercise, where the `blue berets’ may cordon
off the area and no one, but no one, may be allowed ingress to watch the way the
demolition squad works. A court may even be moved to endorse the services of a
retired member of the armed forces in effecting efficient demolition. 28
• Demolition may be carried out as examinations impend, whether or not the
resettlement site has the basic infrastructure in place, and whether or not even a
census of those who stand to lose their dwellings has been taken. That is, there is
no law dictating that the state knows the costs, losses, numbers and conditions of
the affected. And there is no illegality attaching to the derogation from state
obligation.
• It has been noticed, in cities around the world, that the poor settle on inhospitable
sites because they do not attract those who can afford better. 29 They then develop
the land on which they dwell. When demolition brings their dwellings down, there
is no law to recognise the work they have done to develop the land.
Sometimes it is not the non-existence of a law but the way it is viewed, in fits and starts
with blind spots in between, which dictates what is illegal and what is not. The
Development Act 1957 authorised the purchase of land by the DDA. That was done and,
recognising the soaring prices of developed land, and “also as a matter of major policy,
the Government of India…. Notified for acquisition about 35,000 acres of land all around
the present built up area… The ownership of land by government makes planning and the
implementation of plans easier and is imperative for slum clearance, redevelopment and
provision of community facilities according the accepted standards…” 30 So a plan was
drawn up in 1962, overhauled in 1990, which, among other things, promised integrated
development of zones so that all classes of people find their places in the zones being
developed. But there was a neglect of housing for the economically weak and over
delivery on housing for the higher income clients of the DDA. 31 Yet, when the matter of
27 Meera Bapat, “Bombay’s Pavement Dwellers: Continuing Torment” in 1992 Economic and Political
Weekly p. 2217.
28 Bombay Environmental Action Group v. A.R.Bharati, Writ Petition No. 305 of 1995 in the Bombay High
Court.
29 Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, 2006, Verso, London and New York, chapter on `Slum Ecology’ at
pp.121-150.
30 Master Plan of Delhi (1962) prepared by the Delhi Development Authority and approved by the Central
Government, para 6.
31 Jagdish v. DDA Writ Petition (Civil) No. 5007 of 2002, judgment of Single Judge of High Court of Delhi
dated July 14, 2006, at paras 45-54.
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public lands was being addressed in the courts, it was only the wrongs of the slum
dweller that was raised, while the failure to follow up on appropriation through creating
housing stock for the economically weak was addressed in only one instance. 32
Demolition, which is premised on the illegality of the slum and its residents, has an
indiscriminateness that attends it. When it occurs, therefore, it makes no distinction based
on caste or ethnic origin, and, in the irrelevance that is invested in these traits of the slum
dwellers, it may happen that those who the Constitution recognises as needing protection
and assistance may fall as victims to the bulldozer. Studies and statistics suggest that
those belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes may, in fact, be targets
of demolition exercises.
A study based on a stratified-and-random sample, conducted by an urban demographer in
1995, made these findings in five areas in Delhi:
Table 1 - Percentage of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Households in the Study Area
Area Type of settlement Percentage of Sample size
SC/ST households
Nehru Stadium Slum 38.9 490
Govt Flat 6.6 167
Badli-Rohini Slum 36 132
Industrial Area Urban village 31.3 342
Planned sector 10.4 346
Tigri Slum 64.1 413
Resettlement colony 31.7 321
Unauthorised colony
+DDA flats 25.2 127
NOIDA Slum 39.2 372
Urban village 17.5 919
Planned sector 1.8 684
Mayur Vihar Slum 12.1 99
Resettlement colony 37.2 720
Urban village 40.7 253
Unauthorised colony
+DDA flats 3.6 225
Co-op Group Housing
Societies 0.6 179
Source: Veronique Dupont, ORSTOM-IEG Household Survey on Population Mobility in Delhi
Metropolitan Area, 1995
The Tenth Plan Document of the Planning Commission admits, at para 1.80, to this being the general
position in the country, and over the years: referred to in Usha Ramanathan, “Demolition Drive” in
Economic and Political Weekly, July 2, 2005, p.3607, footnote 15.
32 Jagdish, referred to at FN 31, is a well rounded order, dealing with obligations, entitlements and equity.
194

In 2001, the Census “Data Highlights” on slum populations reckoned that 42.6 million
people dwell in slums in 640 cities and towns, of whom 7.4 million, or 17.4 per cent,
reportedly belonged to the Scheduled Castes, and one million, or 2.4 per cent, belonged
to the Scheduled Tribes. 33
When demolition is proposed, ordered or carried out, and there is a neutering of this
information, the effect it has on the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe population in
the slum is lost in the immediacy and opacity that demolitions bring with it. The
significance of a figure of 0.6% scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households in cooperative
group housing societies, and 3.6% in DDA flats is not even investigated.
Located amidst the immiseration and impoverishment that pursues those whose dwellings
have been demolished, the constitutional obligation of the state to the urban poor, and to
the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, lies in neglect, while one version of
legality paves the path to demolition.
Pragmatism
Mass displacement to pave the way for projects has also encountered legality, and the
Narmada experience demonstrates the flexibility that perceptions of priority, and
pragmatism, gives to the notion of legality.
Despite the large scale of displacement that projects demanded from the early decades of
independence, there was no plan setting out how the displaced would be treated; not until
the National Rehabilitation Policy 2003, anyway, which was notified in February 2004.
Project authorities acted as they deemed wise, and possible. When the stirrings in the
Narmada valley forced the dispossession, impoverishment and neglect out into the open,
international institutions such as the World Bank introduced a requirement that
rehabilitation policies be set in place in relation to projects that they funded. Policies,
however, do not have the binding quality that law can be made to possess, and, at best,
they may persuade. However, the policy of rehabilitating those displaced by the Sardar
Sarovar Project (SSP) across the Narmada was different. The rehabilitation policy was
part of an award made in 1979 by a statutory tribunal. Three states that were competing
for maximizing benefits and minimizing the costs to themselves took the issue before an
inter-state water disputes tribunal, which then carved out an award that would bind the
states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, leaving something over for
Rajasthan. Voices speaking for those to be displaced were only marginal, and there
would have been little reason to expect, or fear that the promises held in the award would
have to materialise for the oustees. The dispute, and its resolution, was a matter that was
between states, and about which state would pay the other for the privilege of displacing
its people or submerging its land to get water or electricity.
That calculus changed with the entry of non-governmental and research organisations
into the valley, investigating and interrogating the effect of the project on the displaced.
The movement against the dam, and the red-faced stepping away of the World Bank,
added impetus to the resistance against the large scale submergence in the valley. This
33 Census of India 2001, Metabase and Brief Highlights on Slum Populations.
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was in the eighties and the early nineties. It wasn’t long before the impossibility of
performance in implementing the rehabilitation clauses in the tribunal’s award became
obvious. It is instructive to see how this problem of impossibility was overcome. The
dilution of the requirement that the oustees should be displaced ahead of submergence
illustrates the elasticity of legality.
• The tribunal award had required that rehabilitation of the oustees should be
completed at least 18 months before submergence of the area where they live and
farm. This would have put the onus on the project authorities to ensure that the
oustees were rehabilitated as a prerequisite to construction n=and submergence.
In August 1991, when approached by B.D.Sharma, in his capacity as Commissioner of
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes about the non-implementation of the tribunal’s
award, a three judge bench of the Supreme Court watered down this requirement. “Sardar
Sarovar is an interstate project … financed by the World Bank and assistance … from
some of the foreign countries,” the court said. “As it is, completion is behind schedule. It
is, therefore, difficult to look for enforcement of what had been contemplated wither in
the agreement or in the award. While we agree that the rehabilitation should be done as
far as possible in a methodical and meticulous way, to enforce terms and conditions
stipulated in the agreement … may be difficult and may not be beneficial for the ultimate
purpose”. So it was directed that “rehabilitation should be so done that at least six months
before (an) area is likely to be submerged, rehabilitation should be complete.” And
clarified that “it is not our intention to hold up the progress of the work. On the other
hand we would like it to be completed expeditiously so that the time lag may not affect
the construction of the project. 34 Between 1994, when the Narmada Bachao Andolan
went to court, and October 2000 there was an effective, though unstated, stay on
construction. In the court’s order of 18 October, 2000, where it lifted the question mark
that had been hovering over execution of the project, these two irreconcilable statements
appear:
“There seems to be no hurry in taking steps to effectively rehabilitate the Madhya
Pradesh PAFs (Project Affected Families) in their home state. It is indeed surprising that
even awards to determine rehabilitation in respect of six villages out of 33 villages likely
to be affected at 90m dam height, have not been passed.”
And a direction that:
“As the Relief and Rehabilitation Subgroup has cleared the construction up to 90m, the
same can be undertaken immediately. Further raising of the height will be only pari
passu with the implementation of the relief and rehabilitation measures and on clearance
by the Relief and Rehabilitation Subgroup.” 35
This was after citing the government of Gujarat as estimating that 97% and 100% of the
dam affected in Gujarat and Maharashtra, respectively, were tribals, while in Madhya
Pradesh, the figure was 30%; and after recording the contention of the government of
34 B.D.Sharma v. Union of India 1992 Supp SCC 93 at 94 and 95.
35 Narmada Bachao Andolan v. Union of India (2000) 10 SCC 664 at 769.
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Gujarat that the “tribals in large number have responded positively to the resettlement
package offered by the state”. 36
On March 8, 2006, the Narmada Control Authority cleared the decks for further
construction of the dam to 121m. This permission to proceed was contested by the NBA
and its constituents from the valley. A group of three Ministers, including the Ministers
for Water Resources and for Social Welfare found, during a brief visit to the valley that
rehabilitation seemed far from complete. On March 15, 2005, the Supreme Court had
held that the distinction that was being made between temporary and permanent
submergence was unsustainable both in law, being inconsonant with the tribunal award,
and in fact, given the way water will travel and settle in the valley, shaped as it is “like an
inverted cone”. 37 So those facing either temporary or permanent submergence would
have to be rehabilitated as a prelude to raising the height of the dam. And the direction in
the tribunal award that major sons would be rehabilitated as a separate unit was
reiterated, and the contrary position of the state rejected. In March 2006, there was no
indication about the altered numbers that this 2005 order would inevitably have brought
with it.
In the midst of an indefinite fast in Delhi which raised the pitch of protest; the Modi
government’s aggressive espousal of continued construction and its branding of those
speaking for rehabilitation before construction and those opposing the dam altogether as
enemies; and national dailies, especially the ‘Indian Express’, remorselessly pursuing an
agenda they had set for themselves, the Supreme Court deferred the hearing which was to
have occurred on 3 April, 2006 to 17 April, 2006. Finally, on 8 May, 2006, just before
the start of the court vacations, the court accepted the formula of an Oversight Committee
set up by the Prime Minister, which was to report to the Prime Minister through the
Minister of Water Resources. Significantly, the report of the Group of three Ministers, of
which the Minister of Water Resources was a part, finds no mention. And, while the
Oversight Group would do its “sample checks”: “As at present, we are not inclined to
restrain the continuing work of raising the height of the dam, ” the Oversight Group said.
(???Court said ???)
On July 10, 2006, when the court had reconvened after the vacation, the Prime Minster’s
decision on the Report of the Oversight Group was with the court. Construction on the
dam was suspended anyway because of the onset of the monsoons and “the shortcomings
in relief and rehabilitation work brought out in the report can be remedied by accelerated
pace of implementation. It would not be appropriate (therefore) to pass any direction or
order at this stage stopping the construction of the dam which is designed to serve the
larger public interest.” Having thus paraphrased the Prime Minister’s decision on the
report, the court adjourned the matters to an unspecified date in September 2006.
The erosion of the right to be rehabilitated before construction can proceed was, in this
episode, accompanied by the impunity invested in project authorities and states that make
promises that cannot be kept, or that are inefficient, or are unmindful that certain
36 Id at p.735, para 149.
37 Narmada Bachao Andolan v. Union of India (2005) 4 SCC 34 at 49.
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obligations have devolved upon them through the law. In the Narmada episode, the
escalating acceptance by the court of the inevitability of non-performance is matched by
its endorsement of dam construction as a priority to be assisted over the barriers and
roadblocks.
Pragmatism required a retreat from a position where rehabilitation was a necessary
condition for continued construction of the dam. Sanjay Sangvai’s book, The River and
Life: People’s Struggle in the Narmada Valley, 38 documents the game of numbers that the
state was engaged in, in counting the oustees. 39 This was compounded by the sleight of
hand by which the state introduced a `Special Rehabilitation Package’ (SRP), which was
a mere euphemism for a cash settlement that would replace the entitlement to be
rehabilitated. This was contrary to the Tribunal award, and allegations that the SRP was
being foisted on an unwilling but choice-less people were flying fast and furious, but
which the state was not even called upon to counter.
Contrast this with an order of the Supreme Court in 1986. The court had stayed the hand
of the government of Gujarat in taking possession of land that it had acquired in an area
that would be submerged by a dam across the Karjan river. The government of Gujarat
approached the court, asking that they be allowed to proceed with taking possession of
the land. “We appreciate the anxiety of the state government to take possession of the
acquired land. We are also aware that the land has been acquired for an important public
purpose. But at the same time we cannot overlook the human problem arising out of
displacement of large number of tribals and other persons belonging to weaker sections
on account of acquisition of land.” 40 The court, therefore, set out conditions that would
have to be met before the state could take over the land, which included: “alternative land
of equal quality but not exceeding three acres in area and if it not possible, then
alternative employment where he should be assured a minimum wage” and “which is not
temporary in character”. If, for any reason, the state government encounters difficulty in
meeting this condition, it was to “pay to the head of the family at the latter’s place of
residence compensation equivalent to minimum wage every fortnight during the period
alternative land or employment is not provided.” 41 If a dwelling is lost as a consequence
of being part of the land acquired, “the state government will, simultaneously with taking
possession of such land, provide alternative dwelling…. So that the person dispossessed
should not be without roof over his head even for a single day.” 42 And a social activist
was to be a witness to the entire exercise.
The shift away from placing the onus on the state and the project authorities in reckoning
with the project affected, and the shroud of dispensability cast upon the displaced, is a
calculus that pragmatism has brought with it. There is, too, more than a tinge of cynicism,
38 nd
2002:2 edition, Earthcare Books, Mumbai and Calcutta
39
See also, Usha Ramanathan, “Eminent Domain, Protest and the Discourse on Rehabilitation” in MM
Cernea and HM Mathur (eds.), Can Compensation Prevent Impoverishment?, forthcoming, OUP.
40
Karjan Jalasay Yojana Assargrasth Sahkar Ane Sangarsh Samiti v. State of Gujarat 1986 Supp SCC
350.
41
Id at p.352.
42
Ibid.
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where a non-performing state is accepted as fact, and the project of development as
necessarily claiming its victims.
Conclusion
This reading of legality and exercise in pragmatism is difficult to reconcile with the
inclusive agenda which the constitutional scheme seems to hold. In the development of
Indian constitutional law, justiciability – that is, the capacity of a court to exercise
jurisdiction – is believed to be the dividing line between enforcement of rights and
rightlessness, and, therefore, between an inclusive constitutional order and one in which
many get left out, or left behind. This is what made PIL more than a judicial adventure.
PIL involved dusting the cobwebs off many rights; such, for instance, was the right
against exploitation, where contract labour, interstate migrant labour and child labour
were drawn into a discourse that brought to life some hardly noticed, even less used,
articles in the Constitution. 43 PIL was devised to prod he executive into activating laws,
such as the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act 1976 to reach constitutional objectives.
Where the law fell short, the court could rely on the mandate drawn from the Constitution
to structure legality to meet the constitutional imperative. So, before the Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, children as construction labour was not
recognised in law as being in hazardous employment; but the court read the protection for
children as demanded by the Constitution, and outlawed the employment of children as
child labour. PIL helped the court identify constituencies that had fallen off the table
through the years and give them constitutional recognition. It is this that gave the court
renewed legitimacy, and made it difficult for even the detractors of the court’s activism to
reproach it.
PIL was a purpose-driven jurisdiction. The relationship that court actions had with
legality was often mediated through the Constitution. Inevitably, the relaxed rules of
access, the expanded jurisdiction, and the procedures unfettered by orthodoxy altered the
extent of the court’s power. The popularity, and the press it received, did little to dim this
power. Within a decade, this power had seemingly become unassailable. The frequency
with which the Article 142 power to do “complete justice” 44 has been invoked in the past
decade and a half, including while doing that which is not constitutionally provided, 45
and the blanket powers that the court has assumed in the matter of contempt 46 are
indications of the enhanced state of judicial power.
43
Articles 23 and 24
44
Article 142: “(1) The Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make
such order as is necessary for doing complete justice…”
45
Union Carbide Corporation v. Union of India (1991) vol 4 Supreme Court Cases p.584 at 626-627. The
contention that the Supreme Court cannot override the statute and express provisions of the Constitution to
quash all criminal cases in connection with the Bhopal Gas Disaster was brushed aside as being a
“hypertechnical” objection. “The purported constitutional plenitude of powers of the apex court to ensure
due and proper administration of justice is intended to be co-extensive in each case with the needs of
justice,” the court explained, while relying on its Article 142 power to do `complete justice’.
Having spoken thus, however, on the premise that justice should not only be done, but should also be seen
to be done, the court did order the reopening of the criminal cases. But therein lies a different tale.
46
Zahira Habibullah Sheikh (5) v. State of Gujarat (2006) vol. 3 Supreme Court Cases p.374 is the most
recent, and striking, example.
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There is a direct relationship between the expansion of judicial power and the contexts of
legality and pragmatism to which we have adverted. There has been a shift away from the
courts, with social action groups and movements turning their attention to Parliament and
the executive in the enactment, and enforcement, of the Right to Information Act 2005
and the Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This could be interpreted as a recognition of
the limits, 47 and limitations, of judicial action. It could also be an acknowledgement of
the changing constituency of the court, and the fading focus on furthering an inclusive
agenda. As social action moves into the political and executive terrain, it would be
reasonable to expect that the relevance of the court in achieving social justice will lessen.
Yet, if the power to determine the legal and define the pragmatic is not reined in, the
capacity to invoke or ignore the Constitution may continue its contentious career. The
next phase of justiciability and rights may have to re-work the connections between
constitutional inclusiveness and judicial power.
47 See also, interview with Jean Dreze, “Legal Action has its Limits” in Infochange Agenda, October 2006,
which can be found at http://www.infochangeindia.org/agenda6_14.jsp
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Contributors’ Bio-note
Prof. Javeed Alam, Chairman, Indian Council for Social Science Research
Afsan Chowdhury: Currently has the Human Rights Chair Colby College, eminent
journalist and scholar {editor Daily Star; Director Panos South Asia}
Dr. Mahendra Lawoti, Assist Professor, Dept of Political Science, Western Michigan
University, author of Towards a Democratic Nepal (2005)
Dr. Rubina Saigol, leading sociologist, researcher and writer
Usha Ramanathan, eminent legal researcher
Prof. Pradip Prabhu, National Law School University, Hyderabad, India and a leading
advocate of the rights of the indigenous peoples.
Tapan Bose, Secretary General SAFHR
Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda, Dept. of Political Science, Colombo University & Director,
Social Sciences Association, Sri Lanka
Fara Hannifa, Member Muslim Peace Secretariat, Sri Lanka
Irshad Hussain, Historian, writer and a minority rights activist, Pakistan
Shahid Fiaz, Asia Foundation, Islamabad, Pakistan , a peace activist and human rights
defender
Rita Manchanda, scholar, author and Director Research, SAFHR.
201