NATIONAL POLITICS

Shahabuddin and Aiyar on BJP's Concept of justice and Equality

Syed Shahabuddin

The headline of S. Kulkarni's article "Babri or "Barabari" "2, (Hindustan Times, 20Aug, 1996) except for the alliterative music, does not make any rational sense. The Muslim community's right to equality, as individual citizens or as a social group, is derived from the Constitution and not from the status of Babari Masjid. Nor does the demand for construction of the Ram Janambhoomi Mandir on the Babari Masjid site has anything to do with the transfer of power in 1947 or to the tragedy of Partition. Power was transferred to the people of India as a whole and not to one community or the other. Neither the Act of Independence nor the Constitution gave a higher status to one or a lower status to another community. Consciously or unconsciously, Kulkarni equates India with the Hindu community. A part, howsoever big, cannot be equal to the whole.

Muslim Indians cannot be asked to pay continuously a price for Partition. Nor is it correct to say that the acceptance of the destruction of the Babari Masjid as a fait accompli is the sine qua non for Hindu-Muslim unity or national integration or inter-communal harmony. Nor will the construction of a Mandir on its site guarantee a secular order hereinafter!

Why was the issue not raised during the Freedom Movement? Why did the BJP (or its former incarnations) note take a decisive stand, when it shared power in the state and in the Centre in the 60's and the 70's? Why did not BJP adopt the issue till 1989?

The answer lies in that the Ayodhya issue is an artificial issue; above all, it is not a religious issue; as is has no scriptural authority. It is indeed a political issue and has, therefore, been used for electoral politicking; it is an assertion of the 'will' and the 'power' of the majority against a minority, which cannot but come into direct conflict with the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

Back in 1987, after the Babari Masjid had been turned into a de-facto temple with the collusion of the Central and the State governments and after the Hindu sentiments had been aroused through mass mobilization, publicity and propaganda, I had suggested that although no Muslim has the authority to sign away a Masjid (or to relocate it) if adjudication proved that a temple commemorating the birth-site of Ram stood on the site in 1528 and was demolished to construct the Babari Masjid in its place, i would plead with the Muslim community to accept the verdict. I went further to say that even if no temple existed in 1528 but if there was scriptural evidence that the Babari Masjid site was indeed the birth- site of Ram, I would beg the Muslim community to respect the sentiments of the Hindu community and hand it over to them So far no judicially acceptable evidence, either of the birth-site or of the existence of the Ram Janambhoomi Mandir in 1528 has been offered.

Reconciliation cannot be purchased with assertion. Justice cannot be built through coercion; friendship cannot be based on hurri ation. The issue is not "Babari or Barabari', but "Babri and Barabari', and the restoration of Babari Masjid site alone will be the test of 'Barabari, if the word has any meaning.

Mani Shankar Aiyar

The equality granted by the Constitution of India to our Muslims was unconditional. Who is Vajpayee to make barabari for our largest minority conditional on their surrendering on Babari to the sangh parivar?

To become Prime Minister without a majority, Vajpayee donned an expression of pure innocence. It did not help him remain Prime Minister. So now that elections in UP are around the corner, the real face of the BJP has re-emerged. The BJP seeks to win UP by showing the Muslims their place in the hope that this will persuade the majority community to give up secularism in favour of majoritarianism.

Consider how ever priority item on its agenda - the masjids still to be demolished, the punyasthal still to be reclaimed, the uniform civil code, Article 370 are all Muslim-related. To secure power at the Centre with under a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha, the whole of the BJP's Muslim-related agenda was put on the back-burner. That is now the programme being dusted off and brushed up with the gaddi of Lucknow in mind.

Independent India could have imitated seceding Pakistan by basing the nationhood of residual Bharat on religion. This is what Hindutva is about. Alternatively, it could have decided to continue defining its nationhood in terms of its composite culture, notwithstanding the triumph of the two-nation theory in part of the subcontinent. The decision to opt for the latter carried with it the obligation to see what was to be done about the minorities. Even as reservations for the Scheduled Castes were written into the Constitution, so were provisions for protective discrimination relating to the minorities written into the Constitution.

These two sets of derogations from the principle of equality, designed to translate constitutional equality into societal equality, have in recent times been reinforced by "Mandalisation", the catch-all term for giving practical effect at the Centre for discriminatory action in favor of the backward classes.

It is the package of measures evolved over time for protective discrimination in favor of the minorities that is opprobriously labelled as "appeasement" by the BJP. The slogan of "Justice for all, appeasement of none" is, at bottom, a meaningless slogan because what the Constitution recognizes as "justice" is what is described by the BJP as "appeasement".

Protective discrimination in favor of the minorities was not the righting of an old historical wrong but aimed at protecting them from the consequences of immediate past history. A strong, self-confident minority in a united, independent India, which we might have had if Gandhiji had been able to work his magic on Jinnah as he had on Ambedkar, might not have required the kind of special constitutional recognition and protection that the new republic was required to give the minorities. But in the specific circumstances of the Partition being the condition precedent of Independence, the minorities left behind in India needed the assurance that their identity would not have to be bartered as the price to pay for equality. This the Constitution did. It is what the BJP is trying to undo.

What Vajpayeeji needs to understand is that the demolition of Babari was the denial of barabari. As equal citizens of India, the Indian Muslims (or Muslim Indians, whichever you prefer) who have gone to court to secure reaffirmation to title to their property will know there is barabari only if the court's judgement is accepted by all. They have said in advance that even if the courts were to decide the suit against them, they would accept such a ruling. The BJP has not. If, and only if, the BJP were to say as much, then, and then alone, might Babari give way to barabari.

 (Source: The Indian Express, 20 August, 1996)

Thackeray frightens only the meek. The trick is to bully him and he backs off.

- Mrinal Gore, Janata Dal Leader

Shahabuddin's Letters on Concept of Minorities

1-      On 21 September, 1996

Mr. Tufail Ahmad's article (H.T., 9 September, 1996) "Need to Redefine Minority" symptomatizes academic indigestion resulting in conceptual confusion. He concedes that in a participatory democracy, the numerical strength of different communities is significant for political power. In fact, accuracy and realism would demand substitution of the word "significant" by "determinant", especially in a heterogeneous, plural socially like ours. The Constitution recognizes the existence of religious, linguistic and cultural minorities and, by implication, of "caste" and racial minorities. There are even geographical minorities like "the weavers from UP and Bihar in Bhiwandi or Nepalis in Meghalaya or Chhotanagpuris in the tea estates in Assam.

What is erroneous is the misconception that at the national and state levels (with the exception of J&K) the Muslim Indians alone constitute a religious minority or that the Urdu-speaking people (mainly Muslims) are the only linguistic minority in every state of the Union. The Muslims are not the only minority. Therefore, the conventional use of the term minority to describe Muslim community, in fact, to equate the words "Muslim" and "minority" is totally misplaced in the Indian context. Indeed, if one takes into account the five operational/ functional administrative levels of the Union, the State, the Zila, the Prakhand and the Panchayat no particular community may be a majority or a minority at all levels, everywhere This fluctuating pattern vertical and horizontal weaves a web of mutual interdependence and cooperation, leading to equality, justice and fraternity.

To sum up, in India's sub-continental context, every social group or sub-group or community or sub- community constitute a minority at some level, somewhere. What we need is a National Code for Minorities which should apply equally to all minority groups at the same level, irrespective of its identity in terms of religion, race, language, caste or whatever else.

II- On 24 October, 1996

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad's article "Defining Minorities in India" (H.T. 19 Oct) has created even more confusion, "Minority" or Majority basically a numerical concept, measurable at each level for each prescribed jurisdiction. In India, minorities states can be defined at Panchayat, Prakhand, Zila, Rajya and Rashtriya level. It is true that no social group or sub-group is consistently a majority or minority at all levels in all jurisdictions. On a non- territorial basis, also one can, define minorities within each social group like Shias among the Muslims or Brahmins among Hindus or Syrian Christians among the Christians, for the country or for any part thereof.

The question whether a particular social group is disadvantaged or otherwise is related not to definition but to measures of social engineering. However, one fact is obvious that in any democratic and plural and segmented society, at any level, any social group or sub-group which is numerically a minority within a given jurisdiction, is likely to face disadvantages and therefore, seeks and deserves support from the State, the Constitution, the Law and the Polity.