Learning in Saffron: RSS Schools Orissa

No, I am not talking about what Habermas has to say about Islamic identities-
I am talking about some original work which draws from discourse analyses - may be Habermas` universal discourse- to analyse the rhetoric surropunding the Islamic identity in Pakistan and the recent Hindu identity- icluding the discourse analyses of OBL and his cronies- also of Mush and to unravel the web of power behind it-
It should be terse and clear for our politcal analyst`s understanding and should avoid too much of Habermas` pudding of theories on communicative action.

I would like to offer $5000 for the effort.

Romair # 66

`....I rarely see any Indian Muslims in the North American IT industry. My guess is they probably are less than 5% (maybe even 2% or so) in India`s IITs....

You are a genius at reaching a theory and fitting the fact to explain it. You are correct that the percetage of muslims is small in the IT, but so is that of Biharis, Bengalis, Assamese, Rajasthani, etc. Most of the revolution in this fied is from south India and pockets of Punjab and Delhi. The reason is that people follow a successful model. Once a person is successful in certain field, the others follow his example. This follows like the family, the community, the city, the state and so on. The ripple of software that started in the south is spreading all over the country slowly but surely.

Also in private enterprise, it is the initiative of the individual that makes the difference. It is the lack of right education and the attitude that makes the difference. That is where you will find the reason for non participation in the success stories by the Biharis, Orians, Rajasthanis and yes muslims.

re:#66 by Romair
I for one agree with our Field Marshal. India`s demographic statistics on muslims is depressing to read. A study was done in 1998 and totally debunked the popular notion that minorities (especially the muslims) are being appeased and given special favors.
http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-reddy070803.htm

Excerpts:

``The socio-economic profile that the NSSO estimates paint of the Muslim
Indian is a depressing one. In all major socio-economic indicators, the
members of India`s biggest religious minority are, on the average, worse
off than members of the majority community. First, they spend less on
items of daily consumption because they apparently earn less. The
incidence of poverty is therefore likely to be higher among Muslims than
Hindus. Second, literacy rates are substantially higher among the
Hindus. And a Hindu boy or girl who goes to school is more likely to go
on to college than a Muslim. Third, working Muslims are to be found more
in casual labour and seasonal occupations than Hindus. Fourth, among
those with access to land a Hindu household is more likely to be
cultivating larger plots. Fifth, unemployment rates are higher among
Muslims than Hindus. This overall profile is true of both men and women,
in rural and urban India and in all States. Moreover, the disparity
between the majority and minority religious groups in most cases widened
during the 1990s. The only positive feature is that the sex ratio among
Muslims is better than among the Hindus.``

So, the statistics clearly tell a story of under-representation of muslims in various fields and increasing disparity between the hindus and muslims. The question is why? Is it discrimination?
Pakis would like to believe it is. Such a thought is reassuring for them (as our jehadi minded FM showed in his post). It would reaffirm their faith in the TNT.
Here is an interesting artile by an Indian muslim that repudiates the idea of discrimation:
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0199/0013.html

Excerpts:
``Arguments based on this data appear to be logically compelling,
but the data itself leaves certain factors out of account, such
as the backwardness of Muslims at the university level of
education.

Another factor left unstressed by these statistics is the
composition of the Muslim`s twelve per cent of the population.
About half of this percentage is accounted for by women.

That means that about half of the potential work-force is
permanently out of the picture, because Muslim traditions are
against women going out to work in government offices. In this
way, half of the Muslim population is automatically deleted from
the list of recruits of government service. This leaves 10 per
cent, but out of that three per comprises of those who are
insufficiently educated. The two per cent ratio of Muslims in
government services, albeit extremely low, does not then appear
totally injustifiable.``

``In India, too, such disparities exist at various levels. However,
they do not exist only between Hindus and Muslims, but also
between Hindus and Hindus.

For instance, in appointments to high government posts, members
of the Brahmin caste far outstrip Hindus of other castes.
Similarly, the English-educated class bags more government posts
than the Hindi-educated class.

Muslims, for various reasons, also find themselves at a
disadvantage, but this is a problem which is common to most
groups and does not affect the Muslims alone.

Perhaps a more telling point is that government service relates
more to the processes of administration than to economics,
accounting as it does for a mere two per cent of the distribution
of the country`s economic resources.``

As to why there are not enough muslims taking part in the IT boom, only muslims can answer that question. But muslims in chowk like Farzana Versey do not seem to be bothered about this aspect. They will conveniently blame the Hindus for all the faults just like muslims the world over blame America for everything. If not America, it is a jewish conspiracy!
Seriously, IT is a private enterprise when it comes to recruitment, training etc. There can be no discrimination. One of the richest IT tycoons heading Wipro is a muslim. But if there are not enough muslims driven by the idea of making the grade, who is to blame? Muslims seem to be squandering their time and energy on religion and the Babri issue. They seem to care more if a mosque exists in Ayodhya or not than about IT.
Sridhar

re: further to my last post
``This has a striking resemblence to Pakistan pre-71. Pakistan`s economy was booming. Pakistan was at a level, which India has never reached, economically. It was ahead of Malaysia, Turkey, Korea, Singapore, etc. According to Burki, Pakistan was taught at Harvard, as a successful case study. However, the growth was limited to W. Pakistan. The Benglis were getting more and more disenfrachised.``
F.M has conveniently left behind the atrocities heaped on the Bengalies by Paki army and most importantly the language issue. Also, the policy of discrimination of Eastern wing by Western Pakis at that time was deliberate. The west lived off the east.
Nothing in India suggests such a thing is happening. So, i will ask our Chowk idiot to go back to whatever he was smoking before.
If muslims in India are feeling disenchanted they have to change the way they live. The study i had posted in the last post showed that the disparities in income and employment opportunities were much pronounced in Urban areas. Barring some middle class muslims, majority still a very ``ghettoed`` life even in urban areas. Muslim women in urban areas hardly ever go to work, in striking contrast to hindu women, majoriy of who work now-a-days in urban areas. This itself skews the statistics in favor of ``hindus``. Who is to blame? Why are the muslim women not allowed to work? why do muslims still live in a ``middle age mentality``. These become very relevant as the income and opportunites widen between the 2 communities.
Sridhar

re:#64 by Ras
My point is: there is nothing much to learn from this Commie`s article and i have many posts to prove my point. The article by Ms Angana is biased and not well researched. If you differ, then prove your point.
Sridhar

Ref vertex #58

[harimau,

If Hindus need to re-invent a past to assert their identity, then they most certainly need to question the very existence of their identity.]

Angana Chatterji was talking about ``Hindus re-inventing a past`` and so I asked what was wrong with it. Have not the Muslims of India evolved their own identities consistent with them being Indians? Here is a list of a few of the famous Muslim shrines none of which will find sanction in the Wahabi interpretation of Islam but are completely consistent with the Sufi tradition:

1) The holiest of the Shrines is the dargah of Khwaja Saheb, in Ajmer. This is the tomb of Khwaja Muin-du-din Chisti. There are ten mosques around the dargah. Nearby is the Adhai-din-ka-Johnpra, a colonnade hall of sandstone, originally a Sanskrit college which was converted into a mosque by Mohammad Gauri.

2) As a place of pilgrimage for those who have not done the Haj, the most interesting spot is Hajo, 24 kms across the Brahmaputra from Gauhati, where exists a mosque built by Pir Ghiasuddin Aulia. It is supposed to have one-fourth the sanctity of Mecca and is called Pao-Mecca.

3) The Haji Ali Shrine in Bombay.

4) Hazratbal, in Srinagar on the edge of the Dal Lake, is the most revered shrine, because a hair of the Prophet is believed to be consecrated here and it is shown to devotees on some occassions.

5) Fatehpur Sikri, 40 kms from Agra, houses the tomb of the 16th century saint Salim Chisti, a mystic to whom Emperor Akbar went for benediction and seeking a son whom he later named after the holy man.

6) Delhi contains the tombs of two great saints, the dargah of Qutub Sahib, at Mehrauli, and that of Khwaja Nizamuddin Chisti.

7) Gour, near Malda, in West Bengal, is famous for the Kadam Rasul, where the foot print of Hazrat Mohammed was once placed. In nearby Pandua is the Adina mosque built by Sikander Shah in the 14th century.

8) The Cheraman Jama Masjid, at Cranganore, Kerala, reputed to have been built as long as 629 AD. At the request of the king, Cheraman Perumal, the prophet is reputed to have sent Malik Ibin Dinar and 20 followers and the bodies of some of them are believed to have been buried there.

9) Angar Pir, near Junagadh, in Gujarat, is a special place for women devotees. Childless women offer miniature cradless here.

10) And in the far south is Nagore, close to Nagapattinam, in Thanjavur. This dargah of a saint attracts people from all communities seeking favours.

How about the Tamil poet Omar who, in his epic poem on Prophet Muhammad, transposes images of his native Tamil Nadu on to Arabia and describes the Prophet`s place of birth as being verdant with vegetation just like South India is after the monsoons?

Haven`t Indian Muslims made Hindustani Classical Music their own, producing the likes of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ustad Allauddin Khan, Ustad Allah Rakha, Amjad Ali Khan and Parveen Sultana, to name just a few? Isn`t their musical idiom unmistakably Indian as opposed to the ululating noises heard in Arabia? By the way, not one of them bears the title Haji but they declare themselves to be the proud bearers of the traditions of the Gwalior gharana, Agra gharana, etc. Is it possible for anyone to be more Indian than these people?

So haven`t Indian Muslims evolved for themselves a culture, a tradition, a history that is entirely Indian?

But why doesn`t Angana rail against Indian Muslims trying desperately to ``invent a past``, particularly those who claim direct descent from Prophet Muhammad, Chengiz Khan or Taimur Leng, let alone from the Mughal emperors. Nawabs of Oudh, or the Nizams of Hyderabad?

Ref vertex #58

[Which country Hindus want to associate with is their own business (especially if certain modern nation states happen to house ancient holy places). Clearly as citizens of India, they have a certain obligation towards it (and vice versa). Does it really need a new nationalism - one based on the mythology of the largest religious group in India, no less?

And what about Muslims? Where do they fit in this religio-nationalist vision?
No doubt Hindus have affinity and very strong ties with geographical areas residing in India...but by associating this geographic boundary with Hindu myth, you are in effect advocating a Hindu state.]

The geographic boundaries of India were associated with Hindu myth long before there was an RSS, long before there was any saffron schools. This is not the doing of RSS as Angana claims. I for one cannot find any reference to anybody making a pilgrimage to Multan, Pushpapura (Peshawar), Karachi, etc., even before 1947 and the Partition. Similarly, Indian pilgrims ended their pilgrimage at Rameswaram in the South despite the existence of a ferry service to Sri Lanka. (The Indian Railway Timetables not only showed the schedule of the ferry but sold combined rail-ferry tickets well into the 1950s so it wasn`t lack of transportation that stopped them).

[That wasn`t the deal in 1947, and I dare say that the vast majority of Muslims on the sub-continent would have chosen separation if India was meant to be a Hindu nation. In any case, India is a modern creation created for all peoples on the subcontinent...this new history seems to be a claim of ownership of India by the Hindus. Why can`t the history of India start from 1947?]

I agree with you on a major part of what you say: that wasn`t the deal offered by the Hindu Party (as Jinnah used to refer to the Congress). But that was exactly the deal offered by the Muslim League which used to refer to India as Hindustan and demanded a separate Pakistan. Though a vast majority of Indian Muslims did NOT choose separation, sufficient numbers DID choose separation to form Pakistan and Bangladesh. What you find problematic is that the RSS is now fully embracing the Two Nation Theory and claiming India is Hindustan. While I deplore the consequences of that, one must admit that this is poetic justice if nothing else. If revenge is a dish best eaten cold, you must admit that 55 years is long enough for the hottest dish to have cooled off. And if the new Indian generation doesn`t have the time to listen to the whinings of minorities like Farzana Versey or her fellow travellers like Angana Chatterji, that is the way the cookie crumbles.

Ballukhan,

If youre looking for recent analysis on Habermas or Adorno, I might take you up on your grant offer...how much are we talking about?

Dost Mittar,

I suppose the fear about Cuba then was that they would not be able to survive the US embargo, collapse of the USSR and China`s reforms. If we look at other Carribean entities, they have all seemed to break on US pressures against pan Carribean or socialist alliances-unfor. the tourism industry seems to be the Carribean`s most lucrative resource and provider of labor. While I have great respect for Cubans who have committed themselves to the principles they have and have sympathy for the kinds of deprivations they have endured thanks to Our Great Democracy`s ridiculous Cuban policies, I have read that Cuba runs the risk of insularity and political stagnation. For example, as far as I know, there are no credible younger leaders being prepared to follow Castro and that in fact, sectors of Cuban youth have grown more alienated from Castro`s platform-understandable when you think of the conditions in which they have grown up in. On the other hand, hadnt Cuba offered to send their young doctors to the inner cities and rural areas of the US to provice medical care to our underserved American regions? An irony that seems to symbolises Cuba`s unbreakable will. I dont think my prof. had expected this resiliency.

re: Tianamin Square
I am of that progressive camp that believes that the violence that takes place in Marxist societies should not be excused regardless of its final efficacy. What is so ironic about Tianamin Square is that one hand the US wagged its finger at the Chinese govt`s brutal beatdown of the protesting students, the other hand continued its business with China. I think the answers to conflicts like these lies somewhere in the middle; there was a very moving documentary that interviewed the participants of Tianamin Square. We need to hear more narratives like these-those of participators.

P Mishra,

While I am not denying the trauma of your experience, I would ask you about the quiet and relentless violence that people suffer under poverty and deprivation while others do just fine? The violence of sweatshops? The violence of sex work to support your family? The violence of being stereotyped ``welfare queen`` because you are Black/Latina and being made to pick up garbage to justify the small monthly payment you get while your children are shipped off to family/daycare that you cant afford, or stay latchkey? The violence of getting an education in an overcrowded school with not enough textbooks? The violence of getting a third or fourth rate education? The violence of being targetted for military service because you are underclass and you`ve been promised a tuition if you fight for the US military? The violence of having to fight the US govt for that paycheck while you are fighting for your country? The violence of drugs getting pumped into your neighborhood?

How many people are affected by this violence?

India seems to be at an interesting cross-roads.

This is my opinion, based on whatever little I know of India. Unlike our Indian colleagues, many of whom claim expertise on Pakistan, without having even watched a Pakistani movie, much less visited Pakistan, I will not claim expertise on India. Though I have watched a lot of Indian movies - more so than many of our Indian friends on this site.

India was an economic basketcase till around 1990. Its traditional growth rates of 3+% were called Hindu rates of growth (I didn`t invent this term, it is World Bank lingo). This is why tiny Pakistan was able to keep up with it, with its traditional 6% growth rates.

Uptil the early 90s, there was no IT revolution in India, little privatization, extremely inefficient bureacracy, etc. And Indians actually considered Pakistanis wealthier (which we were). In the last ten years, India`s economy has turned around. It is now a potential economic giant. Growth rates are 6% or so. And economy is being liberalized. And IT is booming.

However, in my opinion, Indian IT is still under-estimated. IT, a field I do know something about, is going to boom even more hugely in India. It is the just the tip of the iceberg at the moment. I just cannot see how it cannot boom furthur. India has first mover advantage on off-shore development. It is the Microsoft of off-shore development. First movers will dominate this lucrative market. And off-shore IT development/call centers etc. are going to be the norm and not just the exception. It makes absolutely no sense for any company in the USA to develop software in the USA, when it can do it off-shore at 1/5th the cost. This is why Forbes magazine rated two Indian companies (Infosys and Wipro) as the top 8 companies likely to grow in IT in future, in the world. Infosys was no. 2 in the world, ahead of even Microsoft and Oracle.

The only thing that could stop this growth would be serious laws preventing off-shore development in the USA, as Lou Dobbs keeps suggesting. I doubt that will happen, since the US companies will not be able to compete against other companies from the rest of the world, if they do that.

However, India has a ticking time bomb also. Interestingly, this time-bomb did not exist when India was poorer, and more secular. The time bomb is India`s Muslim minority. India cannot figure out what to do with its Muslims, now. They are at the bottom of India`s economic and social totem pole. Their statistics in govt. jobs have a striking resemblence to those of Bengalis pre-71 in Pakistan. I rarely see any Indian Muslims in the North American IT industry. My guess is they probably are less than 5% (maybe even 2% or so) in India`s IITs.

Muslims did fit in quite well socially, to India`s credit, under Congress. However, now the BJP is after them, with a vengeance. Just read the BJP website. The only reason the BJP hasn`t been completely successful, is because it is in an alliance govt.

What happens if the Muslim time-bomb goes off in India? What if the BJP, one day gets an outright majority? What if Modi or Advani becomes the PM?

The Hindus are getting more powerful, richer, moving upwards, in India. While the Muslims are getting politically threatened and are as poor as they were before. This has a striking resemblence to Pakistan pre-71. Pakistan`s economy was booming. Pakistan was at a level, which India has never reached, economically. It was ahead of Malaysia, Turkey, Korea, Singapore, etc. According to Burki, Pakistan was taught at Harvard, as a successful case study. However, the growth was limited to W. Pakistan. The Benglis were getting more and more disenfrachised.

And we all know what happened.

If everyone is poor, then people are fed-up but they get along. If everyone is rich, people are happy and they get along. However, if one group is getting richer, and the other remains poor, then they stop getting along. In addition, if the poorer group gets targeted politically, then societies break up.

It will be intersting to see what happens in India. If India can get a pre-BJP social system, with post-BJP economic growth, it is set for success. However, if it has a post-BJP social system, then it is going to be in big trouble in ten years, regardless of how much the growth rate is. In fact, the higher the growth rates, the bigger the gap between the Indian Muslims and Hindus will be.

In the end, I think the future of India, will not be decided by how strong its Hindu majority is. But by how strong and rich its Muslim minority is.

In fact, I use the progress of Indian Muslims as my criteria for the creation of Pakistan. If Indian Muslims are more empowered than Pakistanis, then the creation of Pakistan was a mistake. However, if the progress of Indian Muslims is less than that of us Pakistanis, then we should thank our stars that Pakistan was created.

Based on all of this, I think the BJP is going to do far far more damage to India, than Pakistan could ever dream of doing. Any well-wishing Indian should be fighting hard to get rid of the BJP, instead of defending it. Whether Muslims killed Hindus 500 hundred years ago, is immaterial now. What is important is the fact that there are 150 million Muslims in India right now, and unless Indian Hindus plan to kill all of them, they need to be looked after.

``Somini Sengupta had written an excellent article in the NYTimes on the RSS schools. Her conclusion was that these schools while narrow-minded (like other religous schools) do not cross the boundaryline of extremism. She visited the schools, met with students, read some of their materials etc. She did not include silly propaganda slogans about hindus etc.``(pmishra)

mishraji -- did you actually read sengupta`s article? -- it`s anything but flattering......these schools are ARE a cheap imitation of Muslim Madrasas -- they do all those messy things that the madrasas teach -- to call the RSS ``Hindu Nationalist`` is a sick joke -- is an insult to both Hindus AND the Indian Nationalists -- a more apt term for the RSS creatures is -- Islamist Imitating Hindu Fascists....long name but appropriate...

Once again I can make a suggestion to Indian readers here.

Read this article and learn.

(Before it is too late)

Ras

re:#54 by HisExcellency
You are right in striking a note of caution about the rise and rise of RSS and its ideology and what it will do if it goes unchecked.
My only fear is: Is it BJP`s game plan to slowly work on soft targets (like Orissa whose political leadership is in shambles today), inculcate its brand of ideology among the youth and reap a rich political harvest in future. In that case, we would be preparing a society that will not be used to different viewpoints and would have heard only the `` hindutva`` viewpoint. Eventually, such a society will become intolerant.
But, one need not despair at this stage. Journalists and media need to be vigilant and expose any kind of communalisation of education that is happening in Orissa even while appreciating the good work that RSS is doing among the tribals. Other secular organizations , NGOs etc can try to compete with RSS in doing similar good work instead of bemoaning from afar. That is why i get irritated with people like Ms Angana, who lives in US but talks about problems that the tribals face in Orissa and she does that without substantiating her claims with any personal experience or research. Everything that she has said in this article is heresay.
Sridhar

re:#58 by vertex
Sorry for butting in. Though your post is addressed to Harimou, i will give my opinion for what it is worth.
Muslims in India have the same right to reclaim their heritage as RSS has. I have already said RSS is not India. Why do muslims get perturbed when RSS talks about a ``hindu India``. That is what RSS knows. RSS is the ideological wing of BJP and you can expect it to talk of Hindu ideology. That is what it has been doing for 50 years.
Muslims in India can talk about `` muslim heritage`` that they have inherited while being part of this fabric of India. It is all these mythologies, cultures that make life so rich and interesting. Muslims need not embrace ``hindu`` mythology that RSS talks about. They just need to understand that mythology. Just because M.F. Hussain paints the pictures of Hindu Gods and Goddesses and knows more about Hindu mythology than any average Hindu does not make him a Hindu.
I think much of this fear comes from the ``ghetto mentality`` that a lot of muslims in India have. Most of muslims live in their own world and build imaginary fences around themselves. Anything Hindu is immediately perceived as a threat. Muslims should join the mainstream and learn about the majority community. Much of that fear will disappear when the 2 communities interact closely. I see Education as the only way muslims can come out of their self-imposed isolation. I mean: the education that will make them doctors, engineers, and not mullahs.
Finally, when was the last time you heard Shah Rukh Khan complaining about RSS ideology?
Sridhar

Dost Mittar,

Pardon my not responding sooner. Will be posting shortly.

Since Ms Chatterjee is unavailable, could someone in the know (Veeresh?) please tell what is being taught in these RSS-run schools.
Two models come to my mind. The first is the Madrassa model (and I am not thinking of the jihadi madrassas here). In these schools, religion is paramount. ``Nothing in this book is to be questioned`` forms the foundation of teaching and math-science take a back seat. I should add that some modern schools run by Muslim organizations, such as by the Hamdard Trust in Delhi, do not follow this model. One such school in Maharashtra has acieved spectacular results for its pupils. But these are exceptions.

The second model is the one run by Christian missionaries. Here, religious training is more enironmental and subdued (Lord`s prayer and all that!) and the main empahis is on academic learning, even when such learning goes against the holy book.

Which model are the RSS-run schools following?