Gandhi may have been racist in South Africa

A new book has dug up an old charge - that Mahatma Gandhi was a racist. The Gandhi of the late 19th century, the Gandhi of the South African phase held controversial views on race, saw Indians as closer to white people and didn’t want to make common cause with the oppressed black majority. The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-bearer of Empire, written by two South African scholars, makes some of these points.

This news is not especially surprising, given that the subversive reading of Gandhi had received some airing in the past. What has been bypassed in the heat of discussion over the early 20th century Gandhi, though, is that in 21st century South Africa, some Indians continue to be racist.

I spent three months earlier this year in South Africa. The country has a complicated apartheid history and 20 years after its abolition, is still dealing with and healing from that fractious policy. White on black racism is spoken of, but the more insidious brown on black kind lies further below the surface.

Indians, who had also suffered under the segregation laws imposed by the colonial rule, later fortified during the apartheid regime which classed white people on the top of the pyramid. So it is not surprising that they would be seen as victims of racism rather than perpetrators of it. That, however, is not necessarily a correct assumption.

Indians comprise about two per cent of the population in South Africa, and have been settled there for several generations – some descended from the indentured labourers brought in the 1860s, others from the second wave of migrants, the free merchants, who started coming after the 1880s.

Durban has a strong concentration of Indians. My first brush with a South African Indian was on a public bus in that city. It took no time for a fourth generation Indian couple to strike up a conversation with me and my family seated on the bus - a conversation studded with casually racist comments. These were made in an off-the-cuff manner with the air of spouting incontrovertible truths. We don’t really have anything to do with "them", said the woman, lapsing into Hindi, in the presence of several other black people on the bus. They haven’t done much for the country, the husband continued, it’s Indians who’ve built it and prospered. The couple made remarks on the blacks' "lack of work ethic", and said that they have eaten up resources and contributed little.

This was a common refrain – black people are not as smart, underqualified and good for nothing. Another man told me, in front of his black employee, how lazy black Africans are. "Only good for drinking," he continued, unabashed and wholly convinced of the veracity of his prejudice masquerading as argument.

Another woman looked suspiciously at her black employee and asked if he had washed his hands before handling a bunch of documents. It was not a question I heard being asked of anyone else in the room. The implication was clear - black people cannot be trusted on hygiene.

Another common diatribe was ranting against the party of the anti-apartheid struggle, which has been in power since 1994, the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC has been pilloried on many grounds – corruption, mismanagement, failure to provide basic services. But a section of the Indian public that I encountered was more than happy to hark back to the good old days of white apartheid rule as if it were a golden time, pointing out that the current leadership was poorly educated, unprepared to govern, inefficient and lazy. The fact that in the so-called better time of before, a racist government was in power only seemed to be a minor inconvenience.

A black girl I knew told me she never liked interacting with Indians because of their clannish tendencies and how they treated the other black students in her school in a supercilious and high-handed manner.

It is not surprising then that the barely concealed racial antagonism bubbling below the surface between the blacks and Indians erupts from time to time. In 2013, it did so when charges of racism were made by hotel staff hosting the wedding of a prominent Indian family.

More recently, during a spate of vandalism incidents and statue defacements involving white colonial figures – most famously that of white imperialist Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town – a Gandhi statue in Johannesburg also got the same treatment. A group flung paint on the statue, an opportunity that many took to exhume the racist dimensions of Gandhi's past.

My observations were gathered entirely anecdotally. Naturally some people are more racist than others, and the Indian community in South Africa is large and largely well-adjusted. Several Indians played a prominent role in the struggle against apartheid. But that even a fraction of the settled Indian population thinks they are superior to black people, and does not hesitate to show this, suggests that in whatever form, racism persists.

So why in a country where Indians themselves were discriminated against and deemed inferior would they end up becoming perpetrators of racism?

Apartheid was a brutally divisive system, separating different groups by race and colour, with the whites on top. Racial classifications meant Indians were identified as a separate category enjoying a better position, as compared to the blacks who were at the lowest end of the scale. This meant Indians were badly off, but still could assert their superiority over some group.

Some have spoken of racial tensions in economic terms – ethnic jealousy among the blacks over the relative prosperity of the Indian community. Of course, others have pointed to the legacy of Indian society in all its divisive glory over caste and class. In India itself the continuing reprehensible attitude towards "black" people and darker skin shades is not new. (India was most famously in the top five in a 2013 survey on the most racially intolerant countries.)

Gandhi’s views on race are well-known. They are also known to have evolved during his time in South Africa. The ANC has itself defended attacks on Gandhi and remarked on his impact on the country’s history.

But that has hardly insulated all Indians from the same charge. A black woman told me she was no longer willing to work for her Indian boss because of the sustained denigration she faced at her work place. After she left, she sent a message to her former boss. "You treated me badly," it said. "I could no longer stay on."

#India's #Daughter: Why Banned ? #BBC Documentary #IndiasDaughter #BBCDocumentary

Ban, ban, ban, ban, ban! Good grief why? Would the spirit of Nirbhaya, whose memory depicts her as without fear have asked for this ban. Her parents are not for the ban, but would not oppose a government ban if imposed.

Film intellectuals like Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar and Kabir Bedi are for airing the film, if only to expose the perversity of the rapists; and I would add their self-seeking lawyers. Shobhaa De says it should be compulsory viewing, while Sagarika Ghose says that it is Nirbhaya and not Mukesh who dominates the film.

Government view

On the government’s side home minister Rajnath Singh says he was stunned and deeply hurt. Was this a justification for the ban? How fickle. Delhi Police commissioner, BS Bassi was all set to file an FIR. The Opposition was sidetracked into asking who permitted the film (Rajiv Shankar) and the relief to be given to the victim’s family (Jaya Bachchan). Recall Haryana’s chief minister recently saying earlier that “if women want freedom... They can just roam around naked”. Mulayam Singh had exonerated the rapist boys who, alas, “make these mistakes”. Nishtha Gautam presents the film’s "totemism" and "sensationalism" while many newspaper editorials rightly do not find banning a solution.

Do we want to know more about the biggest social disease? Or simply brush all these issues under the carpet because we claim to be inheritors of a "pure" civilisation. The Modi government’s ban is as silly as it comes. India has no jurisdiction over BBC 4 which has already aired the documentary. Equally pointless, the Delhi High Court, is ordering its ban on the film to continue. Tihar Jail, which permitted filming, sends notices to BBC and Leslee Udwin for breach of conditions.

The reality is that the film is in the public domain. It reached many websites. YouTube proliferated the film. The BBC screamed violation of copyright. Some proliferators withdrew the film, but the proliferation continued.

Streisand effect

Ban followed by proliferation is called the "Streisand" effect named after the actress who attempted to ban illicit material on her. The more she complained, the more people wanted to see the objectionable material. The Spycatcher absurdity when England’s House of Lords banned a book. In a banner headline, a newspaper called the judges: “You Fools”. And, fools they were, denying people a book that was globally available.

Is there a freedom of speech to interview willing under-trial convicts? In 1982, the Supreme Court recognised journalist Prabha Dutt’s right to interview death sentence convicts according to the jail manual. In 1987, Sheela Barse’s right to interview prisoners was accepted by the Supreme Court. In 1999, the SC permitted India Today reporter Charu Joshi to interview death penalty accused. In 1980, justice Krishna Iyer declared that jail does not mean a prisoner or convict loses his basic rights, including free speech. In 1966, the apex court ordered the publication of a book by a prisoner on atomic sciences. Auto Shankar was convicted to death for six murders but allowed to publish his biography without censorship by police officers whom it exposed.

The law is clear. Prisoners have the right to express themselves. Journalists have the right to talk to prisoners. Jail manuals are to be reasonably interpreted. The BBC film had all the permissions from the ministry of home affairs.

Does the sub judice rule prohibit films and journalism on an on-going case. The Supreme Court allowed Zee to broadcast on an ongoing case. Tragically Black Friday, a brilliant film was kept under wraps by the Bombay High Court. The rule does not gag the media. The formula “file-a-case-and-gag-the-media” is unacceptable.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon found the content of what the rapists said objectionable. What if the film portrays how rapists think? When will India accept that it has an increasing rape culture which has gone viral? It is in March 2015 that there has been some news that should make us cringe. A 17-year-old gangraped girl committed suicide. On the same day, a Dalit was tonsured and paraded in his village because he lit a Holika fire. We do not restrain Sadhvi Balika who exhorted beating those who praised Pakistan. What do you say to a mob lynching a Nagaland rapist?

Remorseless

We have become cruel and uncivilised people devoid of remorse. Don’t blame Leslee Udwin for what we have become. We have pushed her to a point that she remonstrated that she, too, has been a rape victim. No banning will wipe out what have become.

A few decades ago, the Supreme Court lifted censorship on Tamas, Ore Ore Gramathille, Bandit Queen among others. This is a good message to our society whose demands for a ban degenerates into a shouting match as a reflex response. Today, mob demands of social censorship have become virulent. It is not just the state, but the society which has become intolerant. We should remember that free speech is a learning process and censorship and bans have little place in a democratic country, still less when it exposes rape as a social evil. But rather than face who we are, we resort to a ban. It’s the easiest option.

Five takeaways from watching the documentary

We Indians are touchy about our nation's image in the eyes of others; intolerant and perhaps embarrassed when shown the mirror by them. We wish foreigners should sing paeans of our history, culture, heritage and diversity all the time. And when they deviate and talk about India's modern day problems, we lose our cool and react violently. Next, we would love to demonise the foreigner for being someone trying to poke his nose in a scene where we are trying to wash our dirty linen.

Governments, as such, are always insecure about new imagery and thoughts and therefore never take chances. They use quick-fix solutions and invoke a legal ban - on books, films and now television documentaries. Interestingly in most cases, the banned works are ordinary but become the most viewed or read after the panic ban.

Now, same is the case with Leslee Udwin's India's Daughter, a documentary film that the BBC had released first on the YouTube and could, sometimes, be shown on the Womens' Day. The film, which despite the ban by an Indian court, continues to make waves on the internet, is the story of the gangrape of a Delhi girl on December 16, 2012. The ban and the storm raised by the film have only helped shift focus from the scourge of rape and also India's capacity to deal with it as the government and activists are alleging filmmaker's hidden agenda behind it. Others are pointing to the conspiracy to damage India's reputation. However, after seeing the documentary on the internet, as an unbiased Indian, I picked some key takeaways from it:

1. Prisons are not reformatories:

Mukesh Singh, the unrepentant gang rape convict, interviewed in the film comes across as someone who is perplexed by the storm around his crime of raping a woman brutally in a moving bus. The illiterate Mukesh reiterates his belief that women not wearing appropriate dress and moving with friends, deserve to be raped. He is also openly boasting about his brother Ram Singh's "reformist" campaign of teaching young men and women moving in late hours a "lesson" and he sees nothing wrong in this.

Mukesh's admissions reminds us of the ugly truth about the Indian society where, on one hand, women are worshiped as "goddesses" and on the other raped and silenced into shame. Now, Mukesh has been in prison for 30 months - first as an under-trial and now a convict. Are prisons meant for incarcerating a confirmed criminal or an under trial? Don't we have someone working on their minds; trying to make them better human beings for a world where they could possibly go back one day.

Unfortunately, jails, as they say, are no longer reformation centres but are known to be turning ordinary criminals into hardcore ones and as indoctrination centres for criminals with an ideology like the terrorists.

Probably the overcrowding in Indian prisons is a reason why the authorities do not look beyond the lodging and boarding of inmates. However, given the fact that majority of Indians are deeply religious and there is a provision for religious preachers to visit the jailbirds, I wonder if someone ever tried to invoke the conscience of Ram Singh, Mukesh Singh and other members of their gang.

2. Question mark on legal professionals:

The two lawyers messers ML Sharma and AP Singh for the convicts spoke the most despicable things about women and rape. One of them, in broken English, talked of women as flowers which emit sweet fragrance and diamonds, which, if left unattended, will be taken away by dogs. He further likened women to flowers who should chose to fall in a gutter or make it to adorn a deity. The other fellow had the temerity of saying that he would bury his daughter alive is he found her with boys from outside her family. Now these two lawyers could have made their points without linking the brutal rape committed by their clients to victim's character.

If this is human material available to litigants at the lower and high courts, God save them. My personal experience of dealing with courts in Ghaziabad, UP, tells me that Bars at district and session court levels have many lawyers with questionable integrity. They not only fleece the clients but also use unethical means to extract money from them. Now, there is no redress available to the litigants who are already stuck in a difficult situation. Isn't it time that we have clear criterion of giving membership of Bar to lawyers like the two featuring in India's Daughter?

3. Resilience of "aam aadmi"

The film depicts Nirbhaya's parents as courageous, loving and a picture of grace. Their views about her daughter and women should be an eye-opener to all, including many of our leaders. Even while working at the airport on basic wages Nirbhaya's father had a dream for his daughter. He sold off his land in native village to fund her studies. The mother knew that the family would see better days with her daughter becoming a doctor soon. She was forthright in defending the right of girls to freedom of dress and movement. The family, by all standards, comprises the "aam aadmi" of India. Their views on women are liberal. They do not shy away from supporting their girls in making big and speaking up against their tormentors. They do not think being raped is shameful for the girls or it is their fault. Given the support of media such voices could multiply and make the country a better place for women.

4. India as a happening and evolving democracy:

Contrary to the propaganda, India's Daughter by no means seeks to belittle India or its women. Rape is a worldwide phenomenon and part of conflict between genders in an unjust society, not endemic to India alone. However, as against societies which tend to push this crime under carpet, India is ready to deal with it. The film shows a vibrant and powerful civil society, a sensitive judiciary and police force, which are determined to change the situation. Also since every sixth person is the world is an Indian, our battle for equality of women has a global impact.

5. Long road to victory:

India has one of the strongest women's movements across the world. But the film has made us realise that the road to victory in the battle for equality and freedom is a long haul for the Indian women. The mindsets of criminal Mukesh Singh and his lawyers reflect the deep-rooted prejudices against women in the minds of vast sections of Indians. The advocates of women's rights have to strengthen the elaborate set of laws dealing with women specific malaise - dowry, domestic violence, harassment at work places, etc - to make the government and the system accountable to half of country's population. However, the most important battle is against that of the mindset.

Source: http://www.dailyo.in/

S Jaishankar's SAARC yatra: Engage with Pakistan – but on India’s terms

Foreign secretary S Jaishankar arrived in Islamabad today (March 3), after hopping through Bangladesh and Bhutan on his SAARC yatra, to kick off India’s first foreign secretary (FS)-level talks with Pakistan since their abrupt cancellation last August. Several questions arise. First, by clubbing FS-level talks in Pakistan with the other SAARC countries what message is Prime Minister Narendra Modi sending to Islamabad and Rawalpindi general headquarters? Second, in what way will the new PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir, representing a rare regional and ideological alliance in the troubled Valley, change the dynamic between India and Pakistan which regards Kashmir as the “core” dispute between the two countries?

Third, what will be the role of the Hurriyat in the radically changed political environment in the Kashmir Valley?

The answer to the first question is complex. India cancelled FS-level talks in August 2014 when Pakistan’s high commissioner Abdul Basit brazenly met Hurriyat separatists just before the visit of then foreign secretary Sujatha Singh to Islamabad.

In subsequent months, Pakistani Rangers mounted heavy artillery fire along the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB) causing casualties on both sides. India for the first time retaliated with lethal force. Pakistani Rangers suffered several fatalities. The LoC and IB have been relatively quiet since, though Pakistan continues to use small arms fire as cover for terrorists to slip through the electrified fence.

The prime minister had made it clear during his Lok Sabha election campaign that “talks and terror” don’t go together. Can you talk when there is gunfire around you, he had asked in one television interview. And yet, the prime minister is a pragmatist. Once the Border Security Force had established red lines and quietened Pakistani guns on the LoC and IB, the door to outcome-focused talks with Pakistan opened.

By clubbing Jaishankar’s visit to Islamabad with the other SAARC countries, India has simultaneously de-hyphenated itself with Pakistan and made multilateralism rather than bilateralism the fulcrum of its foreign policy in South Asia. Engagement with Pakistan resumes but on Indian terms under a broad subcontinental penumbra.

The answer to the second question is even more nuanced. The PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir is a calculated gamble by a prime minister who assesses risk and reward carefully.

The risk is allowing the PDP’s pro-Pakistan bluster to alienate the BJP’s core constituency. The rewards are many: Reconciling Jammu with Kashmir; taking the sting out of Pakistan’s propaganda that “Muslim” Kashmir is a misfit in Hindu-majority India; bringing peace to a Valley torn apart by violence for over 25 years; and integrating Kashmir into India through economic development.

These rewards will depend on how the PDP’s leadership, not known for great sagacity, conducts itself. Chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (who I interviewed in Srinagar when he was chief minister in the 2002-08 PDP-Congress government) is a stubborn man prone to making provocative statements such as the one last Sunday crediting Pakistan for a violence-free J&K election. But even the Mufti knows that this is his last opportunity to make historic changes in the Valley.

Above all, J&K needs central funds for development. The Modi government would be wise to dispense these in tranches over the next few years to ensure maximum governance and minimum mischief from the PDP as J&K moves closer to India’s economic growth model rather than Pakistan’s broken sectarian model.

The answer to the final question relates to the role of the Hurriyat. Separatists are Pakistan’s paid agent provacateurs. Mufti wants to engage with them. The BJP will have to tread carefully here: Talk to the Hurriyat but, as with Pakistan, set the terms of engagement.

In diplomacy, nations talk to all manner of undesirables. The United States engages with North Korea and Iran even though it has diplomatic relations with neither. So engage with Pakistan and the Hurriyat – as the Vajpayee government did in the past – but set the agenda. Easier said than done? Not necessarily. In an op-ed some years ago in The Times of India titled "Terms of Re-engagement", I wrote what a dialogue with Pakistan should entail:

“To win the peace you must first possess the means to win a war. India has those means and they immeasurably strengthen its negotiating position. But while talks with Pakistan are necessary, they must serve one clear purpose: A permanent end to state-sponsored terrorism by Pakistan. From this will emerge a modus vivendi on Kashmir and water, closer economic cooperation, stronger trade ties, easier travel and more people-to-people contacts.

Peace is a prize to be won for the entire subcontinent. It is a prize necessary for India to allow it to pursue its expanding global agenda without being distracted by a renegade neighbour. And it is necessary for Pakistan so that it can extricate itself from decades of misguided military adventurism and state-sponsored terrorism that have cost so many innocent lives.

Talking to Pakistan is vital for long-term peace in the subcontinent. But peace, like any other prize worth winning, carries collateral obligations. It is, for instance, the constitutional obligation of a government to protect its citizens and, in the event of a terrorist attack against them, bring the perpetrators to book. The prime minister, as his government re-engages Pakistan across a raft of issues, must honour that principal obligation by ensuring that terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim are brought swiftly to justice.

Pakistan’s decades-long attempt to acquire parity with India is over. Despite the Pakistani army’s braggadocio, its deployment of over 1,00,000 troops in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North West Frontier Province) has significantly weakened both its fighting capabilities on the LoC and its morale. The economic disparity between the two countries is growing. India’s GDP is now nearly ten times Pakistan’s. Power shortages are crippling industry and everyday life in Pakistan. The entire country generates less electricity on average a day than Maharashtra alone and faces a daily shortfall of nearly 4,000 mw.”

Foreign secretary Jaishankar is one of India’s most astute diplomats. Son of the late distinguished strategic affairs expert K Subrahmanyam (a contributing editor to one of my magazines till his untimely demise in February 2011), Jaishankar will have a full agenda on his table in Islamabad on March 3 after having held talks in Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Next stop in the SAARC yatra? Afghanistan. The message will be heard loud and clear in Rawalpindi and Islamabad by both General Raheel Sharif and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif: This is where Pakistan stands in the pecking order of India’s new foreign policy.