Communal politics, communal violence all over used women’s bodies as the site of contestation and community honor. This is the worst expression of patriarchal values inherent in the communal politics. We recall that it was the presentation of a road accident between boys of two religious communities that was propagated as an issue of the honor of ‘our girl’ being violated by the ‘other’. The Panchayats were mobilized; openly flaunting the arms, and Muzzafarnagar violence was orchestrated. And that’s not the end of the abuse of ‘our women-their women’ mind set. Post Muzzafarnagar violence, UP is abuzz with various activities aimed at polarizing the communities using this issue.
A Madarassa teacher stated that she was abducted and raped, by Muslim men. She kept changing her versions and later said that she had eloped with her lover. This Raksha Bandhan day (August 2014) hordes of RSS volunteers spread in different parts of Western UP, tying Rakhi (sacred thread, traditionally tied by sister on brothers wrist) to the people and warning them of the threat of the Muslim youth wooing away their ‘girls’ for love jihad. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu girls’ has been made the central part of propaganda in Western UP currently. While the Prime minister states from the ramparts of Red Fort that there should be a moratorium on communalism-casteism for ten years, his party colleague, Chandramohan, a BJP spokesperson from UP says that “incident like that of the madrassa teacher are a part of ‘global love jihad’, which targets vulnerable Hindu girls.” In BJP’s parent organization, RSS, after the shakhas are dispersed the volunteers go from house to house and tell the people about ‘dangers of love jihad’ and need to protect ‘our girls’! ANHAD report on Muzzafarnagar violence, ‘Evil stalks the land’ exposes the falsehood of ‘Muslim boy talking to Hindu girls to lure them to marry and so to convert to Islam’. Incidentally this was the major concoction around which the riot was engineered. One Baba Rijakdas has come up in Saharanpur in Western UP. He is supposed to cure the love smitten girls, if the boy happens to be a Muslim!
The word “love Jihad’ which played a major role in mobilizing the Hindu community for violence, has a strange history. As such the two components of this word Love and Jihad, who so ever manufactured it, have a very different meaning. Since 9/11 2001 the word Jihad has been employed in the popular media in a very negative way and that meaning has by now become part of the ‘social common sense’. Contrary to the meaning of the word Jihad in Koran, which means striving, it came be projected as killing of non-Muslims. The word Love Jihad must be a creation of an evil genius and it has come to be used to further demonize the Muslim community. The propaganda has been that some Muslim organizations are funding Muslim youth, to lure the non Muslim girls, to marry them and to increase the Muslim population. The rumor is being spread that youth are given money to buy motorbike, mobile etc and lure the non Muslim girls.
While doing Google search, if you type, ‘why Hindu Girls are’, the other sentence which pops up on the search engine is ‘are attracted to Muslim boys”! Recently in Maharashtra, a group “Hindu Raksha Samiti” has been claiming to save Hindu religion by breaking up the Hindu Muslim couples, if the girl happens to be a Hindu girl. Not that there are too many such couples, just a suspicion and these self appointed guardians of Hinduism pounce on the boy. A booklet in Marathi on Love Jihad shows a Muslim boy riding the Motor bike, with Hindu girl riding pillion. The word has been so popularized that even a Christian group in Kerala allied with the Sangh progeny, VHP to stop this non existing phenomenon.
In India the word began to be used in coastal Karnataka, Mangalore couple of years ago, and in parts of Kerala. It was Sri Ram Sene founded by RSS trained Swayam Sevak, Pramod Mutalik, which started attack on Hindu girl-Muslim boy couples. The marriages of such combinations started being looked at with suspicion and if parents were opposed to the marriage, Sri Ram Sene would help to take the matter to the court also. The pretext was that the girl has been forced to marry the Muslim boy. Funnily in the case of Sijalraj and Azghar the judge of Karnatak High Court, went on to give the ruling, that the facts (Love Jihad) had “national ramifications… concern security, besides the question of unlawful trafficking of women,”! So it ordered the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police to hold a thorough investigation into to ‘love jihad’. Pending that, the girl was asked to stay with her parents. The case was that of a simple Hindu Muslim marriage and the girl stood to her version and refused to bow to the social pressures. The police investigation showed that the notion of ‘love Jihad’ is a cooked up one with no substance whatsoever.
In a similar case earlier the Kerala High court while hearing the appeal from two parents passed a similar order. Two Hindu girls had eloped and got converted to Islam and planned to get married. Kerala court also ordered the police authorities to investigate this phenomenon. The police investigation again showed that there is no such phenomenon as Love Jihad. The organizational promotion of such marriages is a hoax but has become part of social understanding.
Shri Ram Sene propaganda stated that over 4000 Hindu girls have been lured into conversions. This concoction was aggressively put across through various mechanisms. This laughable, figment of imagination spread like wild fire and frightened the parents. The trajectory of many of these girls who initially state about their love for the boy and voluntary conversion, changes many a times after they are forced to stay with their parents. Under a sort of emotional blackmail, some girls give in and later say that they were brain washed, shown a Jihadi CD and what not.
We have witnessed such acts in the form of propaganda in Gujarat in the wake of carnage, that ‘Muslim boys are luring Adivasi girls’. There Babu Bajarangi, a VHP-Bajrang Dal activist, who was also a major participant in Gujarat carnage (2002), formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forced them to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this is presented as defense of religion! As such inter-caste, inter-religious marriages are a normal natural part of a plural society. With rise of the communal politics, these inter-religious marriages are being opposed very dangerously. We have also the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman married to Priyanka Todi, daughter of an affluent and powerful business magnate of Kolkata. She was forced to turn around under emotional blackmail from parents and relatives. The details were not known, what is known is that later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to commit suicide. In all such cases the role of police, state machinery, has been totally against the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law acting to support the things totally against the law.
Such campaigns against inter-religion, inter-caste marriages are not only against the spirit of national integration they also aim to control the lives of girls in the patriarchal mode. Women’s bodies are made symbols of community honor. In addition the bogey against a minority is whipped up to aid the divisive politics. It is a double bonus for sectarian politics. Since in patriarchal norms women are regarded as property of man and are made to live under the control structure defined by men, such an issue rouses high emotions. The agenda of communal politics targets minorities, Muslims at one level and promotes patriarchal norms at another.
Over a period of time, from being just a mechanism to control the lives of Hindu girls, a tool to ensure that girls don’t have the right to choose their own life partners, this phrase has been used to instigate violence as witnessed in Muzaffarnagar. Most of the pretexts of communal violence are cooked up, gradually manufactured. This term ‘Love Jihad’ by now is being used as a dangerous weapon. Lot of messages on whatsApp and face book are flying and relating the phenomenon as an international conspiracy of the Muslims. On other side Jodha Akabar is being cited as the initial incident of this phenomenon. Clearly one knows that kings used to have such marriages as a part of political alliances, cutting across other boundaries. How cleverly the popular legend of Jodha Akbar is being manipulated!
The politics in the name of religion, the politics of Sangh Parivar here in India or that of Taliban’s in Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalists, or even Christian fundamentalists all operate on the same wavelength as far as crushing the rights of women is concerned. In line with this starting from Sri Ram Sene, to Babu Bajrangi to those orchestrating violence in Muzzafarnager, they all operate on the premise, that women are the property of men and their lives have to be controlled. The truth is not the issue here; the myth has been drilled in to the thinking of society. This social thinking is being stepped up by the activities of RSS and affiliates who are having door to door campaign to spread the venom of communal hatred.
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તમને પત્ર લખવામાં સૌથી પહેલો લોચો તો એ પડે છે સાલુ સંબોધન શું કરવું? સામાન્ય રીતે માણસ મરી જાય પછી અહીં તો 'સ્વર્ગવાસી' એવું લખવાનો રિવાજ છે. એ રિવાજ સ્વર્ગની કલ્પનામાંથી આવ્યો છે પણ સ્વર્ગ તો હજી કોઈએ જોયું નથી એટલે એવું તમને તો કેમ લખી શકાય? વળી, ધારો કે સ્વર્ગ હોય તો પણ તમે ક્યાં કોઈ કહેવાતાં પુણ્યશાળી કામ કર્યાં હતાં કે તમને સ્વર્ગ મળવાનું હતું? તમે તો આખી જિંદગી ગરીબ-ગુરબાની સેવા કરી. ધર્મધતિંગમાં ફસાયેલા લોકોને બહાર કાઢવાનું, મંત્ર-તંત્રના પરચાઓનો પર્દાફાશ કરવાનું અને સામાન્ય લોકોને વૈજ્ઞાાનિક અભિગમથી જીવવાનું શીખવવામાં ખર્ચી નાખી. સ્વર્ગ હોય તો પણ તમને વળી તે શેનું મળે? ન જ મળે અને નહીં જ મળ્યું હોય. કદાચ સ્વર્ગ-જન્નતના કારભારીઓ પણ તમને સામેથી બોલાવે તો ય તમે ત્યાં તો ન જ જાવને! એટલે મરણોપરાંતનાં સંબોધનો ફગાવીને પ્રિય જ રાખ્યું છે.
“Growth or Development: Which Way is Gujarat Going”, edited by Indira Hirway, Amita Shah and Ghanshyam Shah, Oxford University Press, 604 pages, Price: Rs 1,395.00
The chapter by Sebastian Morris of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, may be considered an exception for showering praise on Gujarat’s high growth. But as YK Alagh notes in his preface, Morris’ chapter “puts to test whether some states are exceptional” and have been able to create a different model, and the answer is a big no. Morris says in his chapter, “A Comparative Analysis of Gujarat’s Economic Growth”: “Growth of regions since the reforms of 1991-03 can be considered in two phases: 1992-04 to 2002-03 and 2003-04 onwards. The very growth achieved in the latter period is mirrored at the regional level with particularly the services sector growth rate moving upwards in the second period. Gujarat like many other states is no exception.”
Rest of the book, presumably taking this as the overall context, seeks to give the impression that reason for Gujarat’s high rate of growth is mainly due to “low labour costs in the state (on account of repressed wages and poor quality of employment), the higher rate of savings (given high income inequality), high tax concessions and other incentives to corporate investments, vast migrations to Gujarat, and the increasing use of capital-intensive machinery in Gujarat—all of these factors may have allowed it hold on to its advantage” (Introduction). The growth rate accelerated in agriculture because of the “Narmada project, and particularly ample rainfall.”
Hirway adds, “Keeping wages low is another major policy for allowing high rates of profits and thereby raising the rate of savings and investment in the economy. This undermines the interests of labour. The state ranks very low among the major 20 states in casual and regular wage rates for male and female workers in both rural and urban areas. In 2009–10, the daily wage rates of male regular workers were Rs 187 and Rs 306.58 in rural and urban Gujarat respectively, and Gujarat ranked 18th and 20th respectively in these rates among the major 20 states in India. It ranked 9th and 20th in 2004-5.” There was failure to reduce poverty through the state-sponsored Gharib Kalyan melas: “Incidence of tribal poverty in Gujarat has increased from 31.2 in 1999-2000 to 34.7 in 2004-5 and to 35 in 2009-10. The state ranks 14th among the major states (lowest is rank one) in terms of poverty among the ST population. The incidence of poverty among OBCs is again 45.4 as against 9.4 among the others”.
Sunil R Parekh in the chapter, “Some Facets of Industrialization in Gujarat Industrial”, points towards how, despite loud Gujarat government claims, the state’s employment rate has suffered. To quote, “The period 2000-10 could be considered as most significant in terms of the flow of investment to industry”. But while employment grew from 3.5 lakh to 11.5 lakh — “a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of just 3 per cent, the gross output registered a CARG of 22 per cent”. In absolute numbers, “the state witnessed new job opportunities of 4,70,353 during the first four decades as against 3,36,355 in the last decade. As compared to the degree of industrialization, this does not represent a significant figure, as more and more industries in Gujarat have now become technology-driven with the introduction of automation”, with the gross output going up “from Rs 365 crore to Rs 6,42,000 crore”. He adds, “One can state that the benefits of rapid growth of industries have not been passed over to labour either in terms of increased employment opportunities or in terms of higher wages or in terms of quality employment.”
Parikh further says, “Gujarat is one of the most industrialized states in India”, but the value added tax (VAT) collected to Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) output ratio is “one of the lowest in the state… In fact, at 3 per cent, it is the lowest among the six major states in India. That is, in spite of Gujarat contributing 17 per cent of the industrial output in the country, its ratio of VAT to output is only 3 per cent, one-third that of Maharashtra. This is really remarkable because Gujarat has one of the highest rates of VAT, 14 per cent as against 12.5 per cent in other states.”
In the chapter “High Growth Agriculture in Gujarat: An Enquiry into Inclusiveness and Sustainability”, Amita Shah and Itishree Pathak suggest how the benefits of better irrigation facilities have failed to reach the poorer sections. Giving the example of a spot study, the scholars says, “Benefits of watershed projects were found to be confined mainly to landed households (despite a clear emphasis to include the landless as project beneficiaries). Among the landed households, those with medium and large landholdings had a larger proportion of beneficiaries as compared to marginal and small farmers within a village. This was vindicated by the fact that identifying beneficiaries from the farmers with marginal–small landholdings was often difficult as a majority of the project beneficiaries were found to be in the medium–large landholding category.” They add, “A substantially large proportion of the beneficiary farmers (that is, about 40 per cent) did not have access to irrigation, especially from groundwater sources even after completion of the project.”
PK Viswanathan and Jharna Pathan in “Economic Growth and the State of Natural Resources and the Environment in Gujarat: A Critical Assessment” say that “a major challenge facing the state’s natural resources (including land and water) is the emerging conflicts between industrial and agricultural sub-sectors to access land and water for expansion of activities in their respective contexts. While the conflicts in accessing and holding the rights over landed resources are most likely to get proper solutions (through state as well as legislature mediated processes), the access and control rights over water resources are going to be highly contested, especially in a water-starved state like Gujarat.”
Ghanshyam Shah in “Governance of Gujarat: Good Governance for Whom and for What?” gives the example of how the government-launched Mukhyamantri Amrutum (MA) Yojana of April 2012, which sought to provide to the below poverty line (BPL) persons medical and surgical care for the treatment of identified diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular surgeries, burns, and neonatal diseases involving hospitalization , empanelled 54 hospitals, half of which are private. “Though the government announced that the scheme would be managed through a corporation or registered trust, so far this has not been done”, he points out, adding, “The government admits that the government institutions are inadequate to provide specialized services, especially for obstetric care, due ‘to the shortage of skilled staff, the poor facilities at government hospitals, poorly trained personnel with indifferent and unwelcoming attitudes’ (Central Bureau of Health Intelligence). This was the reason, according to the government, for its inability to reduce the maternal mortality rate (MMR) rate in Gujarat.”