Awaaz - South Asia Watch News

News and information provided in conjunction with South Asia Citizens Wire and other sources
Posts do not necessarily reflect the views of Awaaz

Sunday, April 16, 2006

1. Pakistan - honour killings 2. RSS - Golwalkar birth centenary 2006 

1.

Dawn
April 16, 2006

A JIRGA'S RASH EDICT
http://www.dawn.com/2006/04/16/ed.htm#2

Inter Press Service
RIGHTS-PAKISTAN:
TRIBAL APPROVAL FOR HONOUR KILLINGS DECRIED
Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, May 12 (IPS) - In a remote valley that
rises high in the Hindu Kush mountains, a jirga
(grand council of village elders) has decided
that anybody reporting so-called 'honour'
killings or filing a police complaint must also
be put to death.

The jirga, held in Nehag Dara in the Upper Dir
district three weeks ago, not only endorsed the
centuries-old custom of putting to death a woman
that the family considers dishonourable, but
declared that those responsible were not liable
for punishment.

Political parties and non-government
organisations (NGOs) have slammed the
controversial decree. At a meeting on Apr 30,
organised by Aurat Foundation, an NGO working
with women, they approved a resolution demanding
that the federal, provincial and district
governments take strict action against jirga
members.

''We strongly condemn the jirga's decision and
ask the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo
motu action against the members of the so-called
jirga," the joint resolution stated. A second
jirga in Nehag Dara on Apr. 28 had again declared
honour killings permissible.

Crimes of honour are a pre-Islamic practice
deeply rooted in the tribal societies of the
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) where Upper
Dir is located, Balochistan province, as well as
those of Sindh and Punjab where they are called
"karo kari" (literally black man and black woman).

In these rigidly patriarchal communities, wives,
daughters, sisters and mothers are killed for the
least sexual indiscretion and upon the slightest
suspicion of adultery.

Last year, relatives in Dir killed Zubaida Bibi,
a councillor, and her daughter because she
allegedly brought a bad name upon the family. The
police arrested the main accused in the first
information report (FIR), but he was soon
released.

''The menace is so deep-rooted in society that
campaigns, such as holding seminars and
workshops, have made no difference at all,''
lamented Yasmin Begum of Shirkat Gah,

The federal government has asked the NWFP
government to order an inquiry into the jirga
verdict.

According to the independent Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 1,339 cases of
honour killings were registered between 1998 and
2002. Of these, 659 killed were married women and
the remaining were single. These were only the
reported cases; most go unreported.

The perpetrators included brothers, husbands,
fathers, sons, in-laws, the HRCP said. Of these,
only 202 were arrested. The rest went scot-free.

Murders in the name of honour fall under the
purview of the customary 'qisas and diyat' law.
Riddled with flaws, it makes prosecution
extremely difficult.

Activists have been urging the government to
reform the law but a bill seeking to bolster
secular law against honour killings, presented in
parliament last year, was defeated as un-Islamic.

"Drastic changes are needed," Rakshanda Naz,
resident director of Aurat Foundation told IPS.
"The social mind-set, specially the attitude of
the courts, needs to change. Often the courts
adopt a lenient view towards an accused on the
grounds of "grave and sudden provocation" which
is nowhere in the law," she added.

Sections of the qisas and diyat law work to the
advantage of the accused in the trial and
appellate stages.

Under section 309 of the law, an adult wali
(legal heir) of a deceased could use his right of
qisas (to forgive the accused). Similarly, under
section 310, the offence of murder is made a
compoundable offence and any heir of a deceased
could forgive an accused by compounding his right
of qisas after receiving compensation.

Since in most honour-related murders, either a
husband or parents are the heirs of the slain
woman and as the murder takes place in connivance
with almost all the family members, they prefer
to waive their right of qisas and pardon the
accused.

Each time, the judicial response has appeared to
violate the basic principles of justice,
activists observed.

Uzma Mehboob, a women's rights activist, said no
FIR was registered in a recent case in a remote
hamlet in NWFP's Mardan district where a powerful
landowner sprayed his daughter and driver, who
had eloped together, with bullets.

A month ago, the Peshawar High Court set aside
the death penalty awarded to Gul Zaman for the
murder of his wife and three daughters for
venturing out of their house without his
permission. A local judge had convicted Zaman on
Jan 31, 2005. But the high court set him free
after his three sons and a daughter, who were
also the legal heirs of the deceased, forgave
their father.

The same court commuted the death sentence of
Wakeel Saeed to seven-years imprisonment for the
murder of his daughter, and a cleric in the local
mosque in 2002. His counsel argued that under
section 306 of the qisas and diyat law, an
offender could not be sentenced to death for
killing his child.

Naeema Kishwar, member of the NWFP Assembly from
the Jamiat Ulemai Islam (a religious party), is
blunt in her criticism. ''It's un-Islamic to kill
a woman or man in the name of honour. We will
fight the dirty tradition,'' she told IPS.

Zahira Khattak, vice president of the Awami
National Party, has warned her partymen that they
would be expelled if found to be involved in
honour crimes. But the ultimate responsibility
lies with the government, she warned. "The
government has so far utterly failed to apply
brakes on it (the custom)," she observed.

(END/2006)

2.

Himal
May June 2006

TRAPPED IN THE GOLWALKARIAN PAST

As RSS followers in India celebrate M S
Golwalkar's birth centenary this year, it is not
clear whether they are celebrating the Second
Supremo himself or a cleaned up version.

by Subhash Gatade

Golwalkar in 1940, the year he became Second Supremo

'Social change' is an ongoing, continuous
process, uniquely affected by both progressive
and regressive forces. The cumulative impact of
these forces determines both the direction and
intensity of subsequent changes. Such an
understanding certainly colours any objective
assessment of Independent India. After the most
prominent names have found mention - ranging from
the Nehrus and Patels, to the Ambedkars or
Jayprakash Narayan - is it possible to avoid that
of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the second
Sarsanghchalak (Supremo) of the Hindu nationalist
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)?

Founded in 1925 by a Telugu Brahmin, Keshav
Baliram Hedgewar, over the next three-quarters of
a century the RSS (translated as 'national
volunteer corps') succeeded in expanding its
influence into much of India's civil society and
state organs. Its leadership, however, continues
to call it a 'cultural' organisation. The central
figure who helped to achieve this success was
undeniably Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar - 'Golwalkar
Guruji' to his followers, for his brief stint in
the early 1930s as a zoology teacher at Benares
Hindu University. Golwalkar led the fledgling RSS
for 33 years, from 1940 until 1973, providing not
only the theoretical foundation for the Hindu
rashtra project, but expanding its influence
through a plethora of affiliated organisations.
These 'anushangik' partners today range from the
parliamentary Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to
extra-parliamentary units such as the Bajrang
Dal, which has a record of affiliation with many
unsavoury incidents. A BJP-led coalition
government did hold power at the Centre for an
uninterrupted six years, a unique feat for any
non-Congress government. But overall, the
political record of the wings of the RSS parivar
as it gained national prominence was geared
towards destruction of the social fabric. These
encompass the demolition of the Babri Mosque in
1992 and the subsequent communal conflagration,
and a decade later the genocide of minorities in
Gujarat in 2002.

Golwalkar was born on 19 February 1906, and 2006
is being celebrated across India to mark his
centenary. The commemoration started near his
birth town on 24 February, with a large gathering
in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The festivities are
scheduled to culminate in February 2007 with a
large programme in Delhi. Organisers say that
samajik samrasta, or 'social harmony', is the
commemorative year's central theme, and 'Hindu
rallies' are to be organised at the block level
throughout the country. Says a RSS document,
"Meetings of caste and religious leaders will
also be held with the objective of promoting
social harmony. Seminars, symposia, lectures,
etcetera, will also be organised to propagate the
ideas and vision of Shri Guruji."

The anniversary activities have opened up
uncomfortable questions for Golwalkar's many
detractors, in particular in comprehending the
undeniable 'success' of his Hindutva project. How
was it that such a worldview, which reached back
to medieval supremacist Brahminism and glorified
the Fascist experiments in Western Europe, was
able to achieve such an advance in the latter
decades of the 20th century?

Hindu rashtra
According to his biographers, young Madhav was
keen to follow a spiritual journey and initially
studied under Swami Akhandanand at the
Ramakrishna Mission in West Bengal. The Swami's
sudden death in 1937, however, prompted Golwalkar
to return home and rejoin his work as a
swayamsevak (volunteer) with the RSS, an
organisation preaching 'Hindu resurgence' founded
by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. Although a latecomer
to the organisation, Golwalkar quickly earned
Hedgewar's confidence due to his quick mind, and
the following year was appointed the group's
sarkaryavah (general secretary). That same year,
his long essay entitled "We or Our Nationhood
Defined" was published in book form, a work that
demonstrated Golwalkar's theoretical acumen.

Golwalkar emerged as one of a triumvirate of
Hindu nationalists - together with Indian
nationalists Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Keshav
Baliram Hedgewar - which actively sought a Hindu
rashtra based on 'Hindutva', a term coined by
Savarkar in or around 1923. When Hedgewar
breathed his last in 1940, he left a note asking
his followers to make Golwalkar the next Supremo,
a post that he held until his passing in 1973.

The period when Golwalkar was anointed Supremo
was marked by three worldwide currents: the
ascendance of the forces of Nazism and Fascism;
the surge in anti-colonial struggle; and the
emergence of militant socialist movements in
several countries, with help and support from
Soviet Russia. Upon arrival in India, the
anti-colonial movement and the rising communist
movement mediated their paths through the
existing socio-cultural movements that were
challenging caste and gender hierarchy. This was
also the first time in Southasia that new bonds
of solidarity - cutting across caste, community
and regional loyalties - were being forged in
opposition to the British colonialists.
Meanwhile, Golwalkar's project of Hindu unity
took inspiration from the social engineering
experiments undertaken by Adolf Hitler and Benito
Mussolini. In seeking refuge in the discredited
Hitlerian scheme, he failed miserably in
understanding the march of history. In the
controversial We or Our Nationhood Defined, he
wrote: "To keep up the purity of Race and its
culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging
the country of the Semitic races - the Jews. Race
pride at its highest has been manifested here.
Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible
it is for Races and cultures, having differences
going to the root, to be assimilated into one
united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan
to learn and profit by."

On the domestic front, this 'nation-building'
project not only hinged on opposing Islam and
Christianity, but also countering the parallel
challenge posed by anti-Brahminical struggles. It
was also a time when the cultural revolts led by
activists like Babasaheb Ambedkar and Periyar
Ramaswami Naicker had already made significant
headway. Meanwhile, Golwalkar had no qualms in
keeping himself and the RSS aloof from the
anti-colonial movement, and he opposed the
demands for equality of Dalit and tribal
communities. He derided the anti-imperialist
struggle as one for 'territorial nationalism', as
opposed to his fight for 'cultural nationalism'.
It would be more than 30 years before a RSS
leader, Nanaji Deshmuk, would raise the crucial
question: Why did the RSS not take part in the
liberation struggle?

With Partition and the bloody riots that
followed, Golwalkar and the RSS were suddenly
catapulted to the centre stage of Indian polity.
Even while working to provide assistance to the
Hindu refugees from Pakistan, the RSS took
advantage of the communalised environment to
strengthen its ranks. The RSS was blamed for the
assassination of Mohandas Gandhi in 1948. Home
Minister Vallabhbhai Patel, in a letter to his
Hindu Mahasabha colleague Shyama Prasad
Mukherjee, wrote:

Our reports do confirm that, as a result of the
activities of these two bodies particularly the
former [the RSS], an atmosphere was created in
the country in which such a ghastly tragedy
[Gandhi's assassination] became possible Š The
activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat
to the existence of the government and the state.
Our reports show that those activities, despite
the ban, have not died down. Indeed, as time has
marched on, the RSS circles are becoming more
defiant and are indulging in their subversive
activities in an increasing measure.

As the post-Partition riots subsided, and with
the new approaches being followed by India's new
leaders, Golwalkar and the RSS found themselves
out on a limb. The Hindutva forces were
stigmatised for their ignoble alleged
participation in Gandhi's death, as well as for
staying out of the anti-colonial struggle. As his
organisation faced marginalisation, Golwalkar
sought to devise new ways and means to sustain
the project of building a Hindu rashtra.

Throughout those attempts at reviving the
fortunes of the RSS, Golwalkar courted
controversy. He created one final uproar towards
the end of his life, in an interview to a Marathi
daily, Navakal, when he extolled the virtues of
Chaturvarnya (the division of the Hindus into
four Varnas) and glorified Manusmriti, the
ancient edicts that sanctify a structured
hierarchy based on caste and gender. Similar
views had gotten him into trouble decades
earlier, as well. While leaders of the newly
independent India were struggling to create a
constitution premised on the inviolability of
individual rights, Golwalkar was advocating
Manusmriti as the country's sole constitution.
The RSS mouthpiece, The Organiser, complained in
November 1949: "Š in our constitution there is no
mention of the unique constitutional developments
in ancient Bharat. Manu's laws were written long
before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To
this day laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti
excite the admiration of the world and elicit
spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our
constitutional pundits that means nothing."

When in the 1940s, under the stewardship of
Jawaharlal Nehru and Dalit leader B R Ambedkar,
attempts were made to give limited rights to
Hindu women in property and inheritance,
Golwalkar and his associates launched a movement
opposing the historic Hindu Code Bill. Their
contention was simple: such a step would be
inimical to Hindu traditions and culture.

Revisionist project
Despite the feverish preparations to celebrate
the anniversary of their departed mentor, it is
clear that some of Golwalkar's followers are
uncomfortable with his legacy. Even while he is
being lionised for his 'contributions', they are
surreptitiously sanitising the man's image,
presenting him with a more humane, publicly
acceptable face. Such attempts are particularly
prominent in a new publication, as noted in a
recent media account:

In a major ideological shift, RSS has for the
first time officially disowned M S Golwalkar's
book We or Our Nationhood Defined published in
1939 as "neither representing the views of the
grown Guruji nor of the RSS Š The booklet Shri
Guruji and Indian Muslims, authored by Delhi
University lecturer Rakesh Sinha and published by
RSS' Suruchi Prakashan Š argues that in his
lifetime Golwalkar had revealed that the book
carried not his own views but was an abridged
version of G D Savarkar's Rashtra Mimansa."

Other elements of this sanitising project
include: attempts by RSS members to show that
Golwalkar was not even the author but merely the
translator of the controversial book; the
concocted 'proofs' that have been made public to
show that the Hindutva lobby did indeed
participate in the Independence movement; and the
dedication of the year-long celebrations in
Golwalkar's honour to the cause of 'social
harmony'. Despite such attempts at revisionism,
however, it is important to remember that
Golwalkar's current followers do not have any
second thoughts about his exclusivist vision -
they are only concerned about how to present that
vision less problematically. Despite this year's
attempts to update the Second Supremo for a
modern audience, the RSS appears to remain
trapped in the past.