INDIA: Silence Over Suffering Is Deafening

We often read stories of India's economic miracle, its IT revolution and its Bollywood culture. We're keen to do business with India, and Indian migrants are regarded as highly skilled and hard-working. 

Australia is even considering selling uranium to India, presuming its status as the world's biggest democracy makes its nuclear programme less dangerous than that of Iran or Pakistan.

But what about human rights? We so often implement double standards when determining how human rights might affect our international relations.

The experiences of India's religious minorities have generally been ignored by Western Governments and commentators.

India's majority faith is Hinduism, an inherently pacifist and tolerant religion. Notwithstanding the caste system, Hindu societies have traditionally practised liturgical and doctrinal pluralism.

Yet indigenous Indian faiths also include Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, a deeply religious man, borrowed freely from all Indian religious traditions.

Gandhi's vision was of a truly civilised and democratic India which zealously protected its minorities. He fought not only the British Raj but also communal extremists who incited bloodshed between religious communities. His assassination occurred at the hands of extremists of his own Hindu faith. In recent decades, these forces have re-emerged in mainstream Indian politics.

The spirit of Gandhi's assassins was present in the various social, educational and political organisations linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which ruled India federally from 1998 until 2004 and which continues to be the ruling party in various Indian state legislatures. In 2002, BJP activists in Gandhi's home state of Gujrat systematically murdered at least 2000 Muslim (and some Christian) civilians and made 150,000 homeless.

Police stood by and watched these atrocities take place. State Government workers carried lists of Muslim- and Christian-owned businesses and properties which were destroyed. The Gujrat Chief Minister Narendra Modhi praised the attackers, and remains Chief Minister.

Christians in Pakistan are often victims of discrimination, some even prosecuted under Pakistan's selective implementation of religious-based laws. In recent times, there has been much discussion of the precarious position faced by Christians in Muslim-majority states such as Malaysia, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

These are all crucial human rights issues about which people of all faiths, especially Muslim minorities, need to agitate.

Unfortunately, minority rights have become an issue of double standards. We rarely hear local Muslim religious bodies and lobbies talking about the plight of non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority states. Few Muslim religious leaders have taken the example of imams like South Africa's Farid Esack, who has agitated against the mistreatment of Pakistan's Christian communities.

Imagine a situation where members of an established indigenous Christian community in Malaysia are wrongly accused of murdering the leader of a Muslim chauvinist group. They are hunted down by Muslim thugs, their homes and villages firebombed.

The situation becomes so tenuous Christian leaders announce they might even form their own militia if the Government refuses to provide effective protection. This situation is happening, though not in Malaysia and not at the hands of Muslims. In India, activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a movement that forms part of the BJP opposition, have terrorised Indian Catholic communities and institutions.

The VHP regards Catholicism as a foreign faith, despite its presence in India for at least a millennium. Catholic welfare groups are accused of pressuring lower-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity. Most Catholics are either former Dalits (untouchables) or from indigenous tribal groups. 

On August 23, a senior VHP leader was murdered in the eastern state of Orissa. Maoist rebels claimed responsibility for the murder, accusing the VHP leader of having Nazi sympathies. But VHP leaders blamed Catholics. More than 40 churches and 11 other Christian institutions (including those linked to the order of the late Mother Teresa) were destroyed by VHP supporters. One female missionary was burned alive and dozens of other Christians murdered.

Yet the silence among otherwise vocal Christian activists about the suffering of India's Christian communities is deafening. Even politicians claiming to champion our Judeo-Christian heritage are silent.

There are 18 million Catholics in India, more than in Canada and England combined. Yet as Father Raymond de Souza lamented in a recent article for Canada's National Post, anti-Christian violence by VHP and BJP extremists cannot be checked if it is not even noticed.

As if to underscore his remarks, The Australian newspaper reported on September 16 that violence has spread to Karnataka, with some 14 churches destroyed.

All believers must all agitate for the rights of all religious minorities, especially those suffering human rights abuses in friendly nations. Selective indignation on human rights abuses compromises not only our faith but our very humanity.

First published in the NZ Herald on 21 September 2008.

CRIKEY: Think you know the world’s terrorism hotspots? Think again

India does not spring to mind as a global terrorism hotspot, but lawyer and commentator Irfan Yusuf finds there’s much we don’t know about the world’s second-most populous nation.

India’s newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently told Commonwealth lawmakers in Canberra that Australia was firmly at the centre of his nation’s gaze. Meanwhile, our national broadcaster has announced it is closing its New Delhi bureau. And most Australians wouldn’t have much of a clue about the world’s second-most populous nation or its neighbours.

India doesn’t just want our uranium and coal; Modi has pledged to work with Australia to fight what he describes as the “menace of terrorism”.

But what does terrorism mean in India? Do publications like The Times of India or The Hindu or Caravan see terrorism as purely a Middle Eastern or Islamic problem?

The 2013 Global Terrorism Index placed India at sixth in the world when it came to number of terrorist attacks. Above India were Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. These countries accounted for some 80% of all terrorism deaths. India experienced the largest increase in terrorist attacks, with deaths almost doubling (238 to 404) from 2012-13.

Yes, there certainly are jihadists operating in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. But the GTI Report states what most Indians already take for granted:

In 2013 around 70% of attacks were non-lethal. Communist terrorist groups are by far the most frequent perpetrators and the main cause of deaths in India. Three Maoist communist groups claimed responsibility for 192 deaths in 2013, which was nearly half of all deaths from terrorism in India. Police are overwhelmingly the biggest targets of Maoists, accounting for half of all deaths and injuries.

The Maoist insurgency has much to do with farmers in impoverished tribal areas being forced off their land. The uprising has been going since 1967, with the Naxal movement operating in 20 of India’s 29 states. Terrorism doesn’t happen in an economic or political vacuum.

Perhaps the most dangerous form of extremism can be found in the Indian ruling coalition. Before being elected Prime Minister in a landslide, Modi was chief minister of Gujarat province in the north-west of the country. Gujarat was also the home state of an eccentric barrister named Gandhi, who was once labeled a terrorist by Her Majesty’s government.

Far from engaging in violence, Gandhi preached a novel form of non-violent resistance with a view to securing independence for India. He was assassinated by a small cabal of extremists from his own Hindu faith, people who did not share his cosmopolitan vision for a multi-confessional India.

This coalition of theocrats has been quite happy to use violence and terror to put religious minorities — especially Catholics and Muslims — in their place. They include people within the current PM’s inner circle as well as convicted religious terrorists. They were behind some of India’s worst violence in its post-independence history.

And when it comes to violent Hindutva theocracy, guess which side the current Indian PM belongs to.

Indians (and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans and Nepalese) take this stuff for granted. But rarely will you read or hear or see much use of words like Hindutva or Naxalite in our own media. ​

First published in Crikey on 21 November 2014.

CRIKEY: Stuff the dirty dunnies, it’s the religious violence that could halt Delhi

Yes, many Indians are very embarrassed over the poor state of the dunnies at the athletes’ village in New Delhi. They’ve openly been writing about it, not ashamed to lash out at the government or even at themselves. One columnist wrote that the urban elite were deluding themselves:

Just when we were patting ourselves on the back for having become an economic dynamo and a growing ‘soft’ superpower represented by Bollywood and yoga, basmati rice and tikka masala ready to take over the world, the Commonwealth Games debacle has come as a slap across the national face.

And Western reporters faithfully reported this collective masochism while ignoring the story Indians were genuinely nervous about. Having dust on one’s dunny is something many Indians can live with. But would the Games be enough to stop some ordinary citizens transforming into religious warriors and slaughtering one another over a 16th century mosque demolished in 1992 to build a Hindu temple? How do you explain to Australian readers that the Cronulla riots were a Sunday picnic compared to the rioting and looting and murder that took place across India after the demolition?

Indians are now nervously praying riots aren’t repeated in response to the recent judgment in the Allahabad High Court in what has become known as the Babri Masjid case. The ancient mosque was built by Mughal Emperor Babar on the alleged birthplace of the Hindu god Rama at Ayodhya in northern India. The decision awards one third of the property to the Muslim religious trust and two thirds to two Hindu groups. Some argue the decision effectively reward the fanatics who tore the mosque down, and who subsequently went on a rampage of violence and looting.

That incident also transformed India’s political landscape. Mahatma Gandhi was murdered in 1948, shortly after independence, by Hindu fanatics who resented his efforts to maintain inter-communal peace and who wanted to implement a virtual theocracy inspired by a far-Right ideology called Hindutva. For years, the Hindutva mob were considered freaks by the political mainstream. The destruction of the Babri mosque and the alleged restoration of the birthplace of a god millions of Hindus revere enabled the Hindutva crowd to hijack the private devotion of followers of perhaps the world’s most tolerate religion.

Eventually the ragtag Hindutva groups aligned themselves with a political party called the BJP. The current BJP website has removed essays such as Semitic Monotheism: The Root of Intolerance in India. But how do these ideas translate on the ground?

Suketu Mehta, author of the 2004 book Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, describes meeting with Hindutva zealots who describe a typical scene from the 1992-93 riots as told to him by one “Sunil”:

“Those were not days for thought,” he continued. “We five people burnt one Mussulman. At four am after we heard of Radhabai Chawl, a mob assembled, the likes of which I have never seen. Ladies, gents. They picked up any weapon they could. Then we marched to the Muslim side. We met a pavwallah on the highway, on a bicycle. I knew him; he used to sell me bread every day.” Sunil held up a piece of bread from the pav bhaji he was eating. “I set him on fire. We poured petrol on him and set him on fire. All I thought was, ‘This is a Muslim’. He was shaking. He was crying, ‘I have children, I have children!’ I said, ‘When your Muslims were killing the Radhabai Chawl people, did you think of your children?’ That day we showed them what Hindu dharma is.”

The scene in Delhi was much the same. And it didn’t just happen in Delhi and Bombay immediately after 1992. It was repeated in the 2002 massacre in the state of Gujrat, where textbooks are being modified to glorify Hitler and downplay Gandhi.

And if you think Muslims have been the only victims, ask yourselves why our conservative Catholic commentariat ignored the story of the 2008 massacres of Catholics in Orissa?

This is the kind of stuff most Indians are scared of. The dust-sensitive backsides of foreign athletes don’t rate very highly when the prospect of communalist violence is very real.



First published in Crikey on 1 October 2010.

UPDATE I: An anonymous poet and former Christian Democratic Party official sent this lyrical response:

Imagine there's no nigg3rs
It's easy if you try
Blackheads in hell below us
Above it only whites
Imagine all white people
Living for today

Imagine no shit countries
filled with subhuman poo
Something to kill or die for
a subhuman zoo
Imagine all white people
Living life in peace

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf






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SPORT: All-Indian Superstars

Irfan Yusuf watches his cricketing namesakes hit sectarian politics out of the park in Gujurat ...

Humility is one of my strengths. Indeed, I can confidently state that I’m the most humble person I know. To confirm this, over the weekend, I took the ultimate humility test. I sat down at my computer, from whence many an article for this magnificent website has emerged, and surfed my way to Google News. There, I typed the words "Irfan Yusuf" and clicked.

As my self-effacing nature expected, the first item was an article on WYD published under my name in the New Zealand Herald. But what followed was quite instructive: article upon article from newspapers, sports blogs, cricket blogs, TV websites and e-zines about two Indian cricketers. There’s no doubt that in the online Irfan Yusuf stakes, Irfan Pathan and Yusuf Pathan are hitting me for six!

Growing up with a name no one could pronounce wasn’t the nicest experience. Was it "Eefun"? Or "Urfun"? Or "Earphone"? And if that wasn’t bad enough, people constantly misspelt my surname. "No, it isn’t ‘Y’ ‘O’ ‘U’ double-’S’ etc". Get the drift? I doubt I’ll have any more problems with spelling or pronunciation on my next trip to India. Thanks to a pair of Gujarati cricketers, millions of Indians now know how to spell and pronounce my full name correctly.

The Pathan brothers are all-Indian superstars. They hail from the north-western Indian state of Gujarat, part of which borders Pakistan. Gujarat was also the hometown of the great lawyer Mohandas Gandhi, who spent some years in South Africa fighting apartheid and went on to become the spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement.

There is a spiritual side to the story of the Pathan brothers. Until recently, their father Mehboob Khan was the caretaker at the Jammi Masjid (congregational mosque) in Mandvi, a suburb of the Gujrati town of Varodara. He had inherited this role from his father and grandfather. The mosque is 400 years old, older than any mosque — or indeed any church — in Australia. With the exception of Indonesia, India has more Muslims than any other country on earth. Yet Indian Muslims make up only around 15 per cent of India’s population. Most are relatively poor.

After the 1947 Partition, people on the "wrong" side of the India-Pakistan border left everything behind to make it to the "right" side. The Pathan family were different. Sher Jaman Ibrahim Khan, the paternal grandfather of Irfan and Yusuf Pathan, migrated from the Manshera district of Pakistan to India a few months before Partition.

Although India is officially secular, it has seen a rise in pseudo-religious far-Right Hindu nationalist politics. It isn’t alone in this regard. Until the most recent elections, two Pakistani provinces were dominated by pseudo-religious Islamist parties.

I describe such politics as pseudo-religious because I believe that no religion teaches its followers to be intolerant toward the poor and the vulnerable. The situations of millions of Hindu, Sikh and Christian Pakistanis are made to feel even more precarious thanks to misdirected blasphemy laws promoted by Pakistani politicians who only use Islam as a divisive wedge. On the other side of the border, similar wedges — of the allegedly Hindu variety — are used by Indian politicians to make millions of Muslim and Christian Indians feel vulnerable.

The Pathan brothers may tour across the world scoring runs and taking wickets with millions back home cheering them on. However, their home town in Gujarat is frequently the scene of communal violence whipped up by extremists from the governing fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Dal (BJP) party. Go to the BJP website and you’ll see that Gujarat and India’s proudest son, Mahatma Gandhi, barely rates a mention. You’ll also read essays blaming allegedly foreign "Semitic" faiths for India’s woes.

The BJP State Government of Gujarat led a massacre of religious minorities in 2002 that saw thousands of civilians murdered and hundreds of women raped by mobs armed with official records showing the residential and business addresses of Muslims and Christians. While the rest of India tossed out the BJP in the last national elections, Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narenda Modi remains the man who allegedly orchestrated much of the 2002 violence — or at the very least turned a blind eye to it.

This explosive environment even affects national heroes like Irfan and Yusuf Pathan. In May 2006, Indian journalists spent time in the Pathan family home. Don’t let the headline "Genius in the time of hatred and bloodshed" put you off reading the inspiring story of young Indian athletes who honed in their skills in an environment where their poverty-stricken families and communities were subjected to discrimination and even violence.

The religion that South Asians follow most fanatically - cricket - is, ironically enough, one which overrides sectarian exclusions. Pakistan’s national side has no shortage of Hindu and Christian players, and Muslim, Sikh and Christian players step up to the pitch for India. In both India and Pakistan, religious fundamentalism sits side by side with a blend of tolerance and pluralism that is often best displayed on sporting fields.

The good news is that the Pathan brothers were able to use cricket to rise above the sectarian bigotry. We often hear that sport - and religion - and politics shouldn’t mix. But sometimes spectator sport can become a powerful religious force in its own right allowing its practitioners and fans to overcome the obstacles set by sectarian politicians.

First published in NewMatilda on 17 July 2008.


Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Mumbai's melting pot gives way to forces of intolerance ...

On a small islet off the coast of Mumbai lies a whitewashed monument that attracts tourists and locals. Here, the patron saint of Mumbai is believed to be buried. Known to his devotees as Haji Ali, this wealthy 15th century Muslim merchant is said to have renounced his riches and devoted his life to worship and service to the poor.

Ali died in Mecca while performing the Haj pilgrimage which millions of Muslims are about to perform. Local legend has it that his casket drifted and settled at the site of the present tomb and mosque.

A narrow walkway approximately 1km in length and linking the shrine to the rest of Mumbai easily becomes immersed in water. Hence the shrine can be accessed only during low tide. At high tide, this landmark of Mumbai, as sacred to Hindus and Sikhs as it is to Muslims, appears to be floating on water.

Bollywood tragedies frequently show distraught characters drowning sorrows in the rhythmic devotion of traditional Indian Sufi qawwali music at the tomb of a Muslim saint. Across India, people of all faiths and castes and creeds visit the shrines of saints who taught the message of divine love made available to all.

And it's likely that, following the past few days of terror for the people of Mumbai, the crowd of distressed devotees seeking solace at Piya Haji Ali's shrine will be much larger.

People from across the Indian faith and cultural spectrum - Hindus of all castes, Muslim of various ethnic groups and denominations, Parsees, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, indigenous Beni Israel and Baghdadi Indian Jews and other combinations of belief or lack thereof - have made Mumbai their home for centuries. However, dark forces of intolerance have haunted this city where in previous centuries people used the universal language of trade to overlook if not overcome their differences.

Hemant Karkare, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief in Mumbai's Maharashtra state, was gunned down with two of his colleagues by Muslim extremists on Day 1 of the terror attack. Ironically, Karkare had earlier received death threats from extremist followers of Hindutva theocratic politics similar to that which inspired the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi.

Karkare, himself a Hindu, had recently launched an investigation into a Hindutva cell, uncovering evidence that implicated senior supporters of the pro-Hindutva BJP Opposition as well as senior members of India's military.

The Times of India on November 27 quoted one ATS official saying this cell

... wanted to make India like what it was when it was ruled by the Aryans.

Evidence of this wider plan was found on one detainee's laptop.

For pursuing this line of inquiry, Karkare was accused by BJP leader L.K. Advani of

... acting in a politically motivated and unprofessional manner.

On the first day of the Mumbai terrorist strike, the Indian Express reported BJP President Rajnath Singh accusing Karkare's anti-terrorist squad of "harassment and humiliation" of Hindutva terror suspects.

Yet many BJP leaders have watched silently while their members orchestrated atrocities against religious minorities. Those perpetrating the 2002 Gujarat pogrom of Muslims, which led to at least 2000 deaths, have not been brought to justice.

Among them is Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who was refused a visa to enter the United States for his role in the slaughter. Activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), part of the BJP opposition, have in recent months terrorised Indian Catholic communities and institutions.

The VHP regards Semitic faiths such as Christianity as foreign faiths, despite their presence in India for at least a millennium. In August, a senior VHP leader was murdered in the eastern state of Orissa.

Maoist rebels claimed responsibility, but this didn't stop VHP terrorists from going on the rampage against local Catholics and their institutions. Churches and other Christian institutions (including those linked to the order of the late Mother Teresa) were destroyed.

Christian homes were burned and Christians fled into surrounding jungles. Nuns were raped and burned alive.

India is a country where extreme elements of almost all communities have used terror. As Ajai Sahni, editor of the South Asia Intelligence Review, recently told Newsweek:

The fact of the matter is you have Hindus who are terrorists. You have Muslims who are terrorists. You also have Christians who are terrorists. [S]everal other denominations that have proven their capacity for terrorism. We must realise that terrorism is simply a method by which civilians are intentionally targeted. That's it.

Of course, the vast majority of Indians have no tolerance for such extremes. Mumbaiyan Hindus joined Mumbaiyans of other faiths in paying tribute to Karkare who received a state funeral on Saturday. And no doubt tens of thousands more will seek solace at the tomb of Mumbai's patron saint Haji Ali.

* Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and associate editor of AltMuslim.com. This article was first published in the NZ Herald on Tuesday 2 December 2008.

UPDATE I: How's this for a reasoned rebuttal?

UPDATE II: Here is a balanced and completely unbiased letter to the editor published in the New Zealand Herald on 5 December 2008.

Blame for Mumbai

In the aftermath of the Mumbai massacre, the Herald has published two opinion pieces from non-Anglo Saxons.

I commend Dev Nadkarni for venturing into Pakistan, to where the Mumbai terrorism has been traced. Terrorism could spell disaster for its fragile democracy.

But I was saddened by the views of Irfan Yusuf, who yet again bashed the so-called Hindu terrorists, ignoring the real terrorists.

He is an apologist for the Pakistani terrorists who shot some 200 people in cold blood and who were indoctrinated with hate by those associated with a religion that is supposed to preach peace.

There was not a word from Yusuf on the cold-blooded murder carried out by brainwashed young people. It would greatly contribute to world peace if Muslim writers used their energy to stop the brainwashing of their brethren, who carry out mayhem that hurts peace-loving Muslims, rather than justifying terrorism by enumerating the supposed faults of the victims.

Thakur Ranjit Singh. Te Atatu Peninsula

I guess Mr Singh also regards the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad leaders to be apologists for Pakistani terrorists.

INDIA/CRIKEY: Many layers of homegrown terror ...

ANU sociologist Shakira Hussein makes these perceptive observations in Crikey today:

India has been wrestling with the issue of "home-grown terrorists" over the past few weeks ... The Indian authorities have arrested a number of Hindu militants, including a serving army officer, in relation to a bombing in Malageon that was reportedly aimed at transforming India into a Hindu state by 2025, and to "make India like it was when it was ruled by the Aryans".

The apparent revelation of an organized terrorist network with links to well-known Hindu nationalist organizations, including the opposition BJP, has attracted considerable attention in the subcontinent.

The network has also been connected to attacks in Hyderabad and Ajmer. But the biggest sensation came when anti-terrorism officials claimed during a court hearing that the network may have been responsible for the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta Express train between Delhi and Lahore. Most of the 68 victims of the Samjhauta attack were Pakistani nationals returning home after visiting India, and Pakistan-based jihadi organizations were widely held to be responsible. So allegations that the perpetrators may have been Hindu
extremists rather than Muslims attracted widespread attention in both India and Pakistan. The Indian authorities later retreated from the claims regarding the Samjhauta bombing, but the Pakistani government and media are still demanding further information.

The ruling Congress party is in a weak position to face forthcoming elections, and the BJP is claiming that the current crackdown on Hindu organizations is aimed at courting the Muslim vote. The BJP, for its part, is rallying in support of the so-called "saffron bombers".

This week's Mumbai attacks have overtaken the "saffron bomber's" place in the headlines. But the story does not seem likely to go away.

UPDATE: More of my tendentious writing ...

A certain tabloid columnist recently described my writing as tendentious. According to the AskOxford website, the word "tendentious" means: "calculated to promote a particular cause or point of view" The bulk of what I write is opinion and review. So obviously I do promote a point of view. As for whether I promote a cause, I wonder what possible objection the tabloid columnist in question would have to the causes promoted here, here, here and here.

Anyway, here is some of the stuff I've written recently ...


The events in Islamabad shook all of us. The disgusting and cowardly attacks against civilians brought home yet again the fact that terrorism affects all people regardless of background, ethnicity and faith. My take on these dastardly acts appeared in The Age here, as well as on the Brisbane Times website here.
The New Zealand Herald published this piece I wrote about Western silence on the continued attacks by (pseudo-)Hindu militants against Indian Christians.


A recent piece I wrote for Crikey on the documentary Embedded With Sheikh Hilaly broadcast on SBS on 23 September 2008 appears here.

UPDATE I: In relation to The Age article, I received correspondence from Professor William Shepard, who taught religious studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Professor Shepard is fluent in written and spoken Arabic (both classical and modern) and is regarded as a world authority on the work of Syed Qutb. Here is what Professor Shepard said ...

Good article, but let me point out that Ramadan is not one of the "sacred months" when there is to be no fighting. I believe they are Dhu-Qa‘da, Dhul-Hijja, Muharram and Rajab. I might add that it is not only the "post-modern left" have hijacked terrorism studies but also the neo-conservative right.

Thanks to Professor Shepard for his correction and comment.

UPDATE II: A Kiwi chap named Bill wrote this response to my NZ Herald article ...

I have just read the article by Irfan Yusuf your associate editor in the NZ Herald 22/8/08. May I congratulate him for his courage and honesty. I have never seen an article in a New Zealand paper criticizing Hindu and Muslim extremist and government actions against Christian minorities in Asia (especially those who have changed or wish to change their religion). It blew me away! Our politicians and Western media are too secular, anti-Christian and self-interested as well as being scared of the political and trade consequences. Coming from Mr Yusuf they carry great weight and are overdue.

I have often thought of contacting our government or some authorities in Asia over this long standing tragedy but have been warned off as it might put local Christians in danger from Islamic and Hindu government security police who constantly harass them or from violent religious extremists. If your protest is taken to heart it will go a long way to right a wrong and convince us that Islam's claim to be a peace loving and tolerant religion isn't just words. However I'm afraid I won't be holding my breath waiting as it has been allowed to become so ingrained and widespread.

Well done! I respect you for your stand for what is right.

Yes, tendentious writing indeed!

UPDATE III: In relation to the Crikey piece, one chap named Tony had this response on the Crikey website ...

The Hilaly 'documentary' was an exercise in opportunism which didn't work for either the sheikh or the interviewer because both were so clearly inept in the art of ingenuous communication. What positive outcome this show could possibly have delivered remains a mystery, as does the steady decline of the SBS ethos to report intelligently on our multicultural society. I can hear dopes prattle incomprehensibly any day of the week. Both these clowns should retire.

I guess all this controversy about the program will do wonders for the ratings. Once again, SBS will be laughing all the way to the bank! Given their positive nett contribution to television in Australia, good luck to them.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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REVIEW: Defence of pluralism in a rupturing world

The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India's Future
By Martha C. Nussbaum
Harvard University Press, 432pp, $50.95

MARTHA Nussbaum is no ordinary academic. Her research and writing interests cover a broad spectrum of social sciences, including constitutional law, political science, theology, ethics and philosophy. In an age of academic specialisation, she is one of the few modern renaissance scholars.

Nussbaum is also proof that pigeon holes weren't created for towering intellectuals. Brought up in the Episcopalian Church, she converted to Judaism later in life. While enthusiastically embracing secularism, she rejects claims that the US constitution explicitly guarantees absolute separation of church and state.

Instead, Nussbaum seems to adopt a view of secularism long held by South Asian writers: that it serves to mediate between the conflicting claims of otherwise exclusivist religions. The secular state does not champion atheism or hostility to religion. Rather, it champions religious pluralism: it should aim to treat all faiths (indeed, all beliefs) equally and impartially.

Such themes resonate in Nussbaum's passionate study of Indian democracy, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India's Future. She focuses on the political theology of Hindutva adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which ruled India from 1998 to 2004. The BJP's website describes Hindutva as cultural nationalism. Yet many devout Hindus regard it as a theocratic corruption of Hinduism, borrowing much from far-Right European national socialist ideology (Nussbaum refers to the influence of "romantic/fascist European ideas of blood and purity" on Hindutva).

The BJP's power base grew rapidly out of sectarian riots that followed the destruction of a 400-year-old mosque built in the town of Ayodhya. Anti-Muslim and anti-Christian sectarian bigotry can still be found in documents posted on the BJP website. In power, the BJP sought to combine neo-liberal free market economic reforms with neo-fascist sectarian politics. However, the realities of democratic politics softened much of the BJP's hardline sectarianism. Former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was far more moderate than his colleagues in the BJP.

Despite losing power at the federal level, the BJP continues to rule various states. Among then is the northwestern state of Gujarat, the home state of Mahatma Gandhi. Nussbaum focuses particular attention on the Gujarat massacres of 2002, in which more than 2000 Muslim and Christian civilians were massacred and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. The Gujarat massacres were sparked by an explosion on a train carrying pilgrims from Ayodhya, believed to have been caused by a Muslim mob.

Nussbaum argues that the architect of those riots was Gujarat's BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Her view is shared by many in the US State Department, which denied him a diplomatic visa and even revoked his tourist-business visa in March 2005.

Perhaps more chilling than her detailed description and analysis of the Gujarat massacres is Nussbaum's account of interviews with BJP ideologues and intellectuals. These men use the most anti-intellectual sectarian rhetoric to justify and excuse the actions of rioters responsible for these massacres.

Among her interviewees is Devendra Swarup, who tells Nussbaum:

You see it all over the world. I am not aware of any country where Muslims have been able to live in peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims. You have three backgrounds -- American, German and Jew -- so you are well aware of how Islam has created havoc all over the world.

Apart from being anti-Muslim, such rhetoric is inherently anti-Semitic in that it presumes Jews must necessarily engage in attributing negative characteristics to an entire group.

Nussbaum also devotes significant chapters to the cultural, history and education wars that often accompanied the BJP's sectarian politics.

Unfortunately, she relies too heavily on English-language media, textbooks and other resources. Although many Indians, especially the growing middle class, are proficient in English, much of India's cultural and political conversation is conducted in Hindi and various regional languages.

A number of Nussbaum's explanations for the rise of the Hindutva far Right also seem somewhat curious. She argues that India's education system, with its emphasis on rote learning as opposed to a more nuanced analytical approach to subjects, has made it easier for Indians to accept the more simplistic policy formulas of BJP ideologues.

Such arguments seem to ignore the reality thateven highly educated Indians supported the BJP, not for sectarian reasons but for its economic credentials. Many of these same Indians, including prominent management guru and former Procter & Gamble executive Gurcharan Das (whom Nussbaum interviews), ceased their support for the BJP when its divisive sectarian agenda compromised its economic management credentials.

A leading theme of The Clash Within is Nussbaum's direct assault on Samuel Huntington's (now almost cliched) clash of civilisations thesis, so often used by simplistic sectarian voices to support claims about an inevitable battle between monolithic Islam and the monolithic West (or, as Nussbaum puts it, to allege "the world is currently polarised between a Muslim monolith, bent on violence, and the democratic cultures of Europe and North America"). Nussbaum's clash isn't between supposedly monolithic civilisations but ...

... instead a clash within virtually all modern nations: between people who are prepared to live with others who are different on terms of equal respect, and those who seek the protection of homogeneity, achieved through the domination of a single religious and ethnic tradition.

It's a powerful argument, made stronger by the fact that Nussbaum's case study focuses on a nation that happens to be the world's largest democracy and an emerging economic, political and military power.

The Clash Within should be read not only by those interested in India's present and future, but by anyone seeking to understand the processes by which even the most complex and sophisticated societies can navigate their way into a morass of violent intolerance.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and recipient of the 2007 Allen & Unwin Iremonger award for public affairs writing. This article was first published in the Revew section of The Weekend Australian on 16-17 August 2008.

COMMENT: Discovering paternal prejudice ...

Last spring, I started a spring clean of my office. That was 2007. It’s now winter 2008, and I’m still at it. I’ve just pulled out an essay that I started reading years ago. Perhaps as long ago as 2002.

The essay is by Mira Kamdar and is entitled The Struggle for India's Soul. It was first published in the Fall 2002 edition of the World Policy Journal.

The article is a reflection on the rise of religious prejudice in India, and how it is infecting even otherwise educated and tolerant middle-class Indians. It's a topic that I find very uncomfortable talking about, given my own SOuth Asian background. It's always hard to openly recognise and identify the log in one's own eye.

Kamdar talks at some length about her "immigrant Gujarati father" who is "a liberal Democrat" yet at the same time "a supporter of Hindu fascism". She discusses how Hindutva as a political ideology has become a tool for those wishing to transform India into a religious state.

Hindutva is the ideology of the Sangh Parivar, an amalgam of groups which includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, now India’s ruling party; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS; the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or VHP; and the Bajrang Dal. The BJP plays the role of the moderate, mainstream entity, friendly to multinational capital and mature enough to lead India onto the global stage of the great powers, against the RSS’s frankly fascist youth corps activities, the VHP’s worldwide propaganda machine, and the Bajrang Dal’s street-level enforcement and terror gangs.

I've been told by a number of sources that Liberal Party MP's and organisational officials regularly attend gatherings organised by the Australian branch of the VHP.

Kamdar goes into great length about the massacre that took place in Gujarat in March 2002. She writes of ...

... the participation in the violence of large numbers of white-collar, educated men, and the presence of middle-class women, who screamed filthy insults at the Muslims and cheered on male attackers as they targeted members of the Muslim elite: business owners, academics, lawyers, former legislators ... In Ahmedabad, Ehsan Jafri, a poet and former Congress Party MP, was burned alive at his home, along with several members of his family, despite a series of desperate cell phone calls to the authorities for help.

Kamdar acknowledges that extremists from all sides participate in such massacres. What troubles her is that such extremism is now becoming mainstream even in middle class circles in India.

Kamdar wrote this essay in 2002. She has just released a book Planet India, and it would be interesting to see if she maintains the pessimism she felt some 6 years ago.


Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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BOOKS: David Davidar on religion, state and fundamentalism

The following are some notes I took during a session at the Sydney Writers’ Festival with David Davidar, author of the novel The Solitude of Emperors. A review of this book can be found here.

[01] India is arguably the oldest multiracial and multi-religious society on earth. Indians have had thousands of years of practice getting used to living together.

[02] Davidar discussed the phenomenon of Hindutva as a political and social movement. He spoke of tens of millions of youths from Hindu families who were hypnotised by Hindu extremists using all kinds of rhetorical tools. Many youths were unemployed and were told by the evangelists of Hindu extremism that they were victims of allegedly foreign faiths. Many were told: “Join us and we will solve your economic problems”.

[03] The main character of the novel is Vijay, a young man from a country town in South India who scores a job in a Bombay magazine (called the Indian Secularist and owned/edited by one Mr Sorabjee) and moves to the big city. Vijay at first has no exposure and no real opinions on racial issues or communal politics. Like most people, he is happy to remain a bystander until it racial ugliness forces itself upon him in dramatic circumstances.

[04] Many faiths came to India in their earlist stages. They include Muslims who arrived within the first century after the passing of the Prophet. They included members of a lost tribe of Israel whose descendants kept Judaism alive in South Asia. They even include one of the church fathers.

[05] India can always bounce back from Hindutva. However, it should never have happened. Indians owe it to themselves to explore its causes and its consequences.

[06] One of the major themes of the novel is to explore how people can feel powerless to do something to stop a force that we know is malignant and capable of destroying us all.


[07] Europeans think of secularism as separating church from state with a view to protecting either from the other. Indians, on the other hand, see no problem with religions taking a public role so long as the state maintains neutrality in religion. Indians have a different notion of secularism.

[08] In nations such as India, the only way to keep religious fanaticism in check is by having strong leaders prepared to perform this task. The textbook within the novel is Mr Sorabjee’s attempt to show how three great Indian leaders (Ashoka, Akbar and Gandhi) successfully ensured that religious neutrality was enforced as much as circumstances would allow.

[09] Sorabjee describes rioters as the children of unholy gods who prefer to kill in old-fashioned and brutal ways using fire, stoning and machetes. Their acts of murder are in essence acts of ritual worship of the unholy gods/

[10] Fundamentalism is religion gone mad. It is the worship of destructive gods.

[11] Ashoka was an ancient Indian king who adopted Buddhism. He established the world’s first welfare state. He became a peace-maker at a time when emperors were expected to make war.

[12] It is hard for Westerners to imagine engaging with people for whom religion is everything, the centre of their lives. In India, such people form the majority. Arguably, they also form the majority of humanity. The best way to deal with such people if to bring out and emphasise the best aspects of their religion. The way to fight the theology of hate is to emphasise real faith. Davidar insists that all the followers of all religions can find within their faiths the building blocks of a religiously neutral society. In this respect, he departs from the views of evangelical atheists such as Christopher Hitchens.

[13] At no point in history have East and West been so interdependent. Manufacturing is in the West, and it cannot take place without the resources and raw materials in the East. What will save us all is this economic interdependence and the instinct for self-preservation. Basically we have no option ut to learn to get on with each other.

[14] Arguably, globalisation is a force for good. It reinforces our interdependence. At no time before have more people on our planet had as much of the world at their doorstep or even at their fingertips than now.

[15] Economic prosperity in India has brought with it a dilution of caste lines. However, there are areas where caste is still an important factor. We should also remember that caste divisions for centuries provided some social structure and stability.

[16] We must never presume that the perversion of faith into violent fundamentalism is a monopoly of any one faith, whether Hinduism or Islam.

[17] The foot soldiers of fundamentalism tend to be blameless. The real perverters of faith are those who mastermind perversion, and they do this almost always with the intention of making themselves more powerful. Fundamentalism is caused by powerful men wishing to become even more powerful. And they are almost always men.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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