Lessons in Advanced Citizenship

So Arundhati Roy is an idiot. Yes, we all knew that...what's new? In her never-ending quest for notoriety, Roy recently visited Kashmir in the aftermath of the civil unrest there. While there, she spoke to locals in small gatherings and severely criticised the Indian government for the atrocities it was committing in the state. She further stated that the disputed territory of Kashmir was not an integral part of India. The next morning's newspapers covered her comments and there was an outcry across the emotionally stunted nation. “How could she say such nasty things about India?” people wanted to know. As was to be expected, the observation was very quickly made by a lobotomised individual that Roy could get away with such talk only in a free country like India, and had she been in Pakistan she would not have been cheeky enough to pull such a stunt.

The Indian Home Ministry is reported to have told the police in New Delhi that a case may be filed against Roy for sedition. Clearly, it thinks that there is enough evidence to charge Roy under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code, which states, “Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, to which fine may be added, or with imprisonment which may extend to three years, to which fine may be added, or with fine.” Ironically, freedom of speech in India, though enshrined in the Constitution of India as a fundamental right, is actually curtailed. Although Article 19(1)a gives the freedom of speech and expression to every individual, sub-clause (2) restricts the freedom whereas it pertains to “reasons of "sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, preserving decency, preserving morality, in relation to contempt, court, defamation, or incitement to an offence.” If the Union Minister for Justice, Moodbidri Veerappa Moily, is any indication of the laws in India, the Minister described Roy's remarks as "most unfortunate". He said: "Yes, there is freedom of speech...but it can't violate the patriotic sentiments of the people."

Upon learning of the possible case pending against her, Roy cleverly used the media opportunity to lambast the Indian government some more. In a statement she released, Roy declared,"I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state." In an interview, she went on, "Some have accused me of giving 'hate speeches', of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their fingernails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians.” Roy continued, “Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor roam free."

Speaking at a seminar on ‘Wither Kashmir: Freedom or Enslavement?’ in Srinagar, Roy said, “Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. It is a historical fact.” She declared that she was proud to associate herself with “resistance movements” across India and counselled Kashmiris to “consolidate the gains” of the recent four months of anti-India agitation. “The power concedes nothing unless it is forced to,” she said, and demanded demilitarisation of Jammu & Kashmir, urging Kashmiris not to join the State police and the Central Reserve Police Force. “India is behaving like a colonial power and suppressing one community at the hands of the other,” Roy ranted on. “They are sending Nagas to Kashmir and Punjabis to Manipur.” Roy didn't spare Prime Minister Manmohan Singh either. “The Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy,” she claimed, “has not been elected.” Roy is known not only for her controversial speeches but also her equally polemical writings.

In the wake of such rancid verbal diahorrea from Roy, it is difficult to clearly see the issue in question here. Undoubtedly, many are angry at much of what Roy said. Furthermore, there is no doubt that not only does Roy have her history wrong, but she also does not understand the nation-building aspects of military recruitment and deployment not just in the Indian Army but armies worldwide. It is also quite clear that Roy is a naive person who is yet to see real brutality or denial of civil rights. However, that cannot be allowed to translate into anger instead of justice. As the law stands, Roy is clearly guilty. The outcome of any legal proceedings will surely find it to be so. But that is not what concerns me. The fundamental principle of the restriction of free speech and expression is what bothers me. In his classic defence of free speech, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill laid down what is known as the ‘harm principle.' It postulates that the only justification for silencing a person against his will is to prevent him from causing harm to others. It is to this powerful libertarian mid-19th century principle that we owe the idea that free speech cannot be proscribed merely because we find it disagreeable, and that curbs may be imposed only if such expression constitutes a direct, explicit, and unequivocal incitement to violence. Roy, for all her raving and ranting, did not cross this threshold – the law requires that direct connection between a defendant’s words and the harm done by others be shown. Clearly, there is no direct link between Roy and Kashmiri separatists or the Maoists. Roy's support of these heinous causes is unquestionably problematic to say the least, but she has not armed or funded them. However, laws cannot be enacted retroactively and this argument does not serve as a defence of Roy. It is, however, something that Indians should pay close attention to for the future lest India indeed become a police state. One would have thought that we had all learned our lesson from the Weimar Republic NOT to have such sweeping and powerful laws on the books.

So what are the problems with the restrictions placed upon free speech? Does freedom mean license? Of course not. However, to frame the debate as a choice between license and encroaching restrictions is the fallacy of excluded middles. Subject to the harm principle, freedom of expression should indeed be absolute. Let us quickly run through the specific restrictions placed upon free speech in India:

1. sovereignty and integrity of India – how is the sovereignty and integrity of India “violenced” by free speech? Sovereignty and integrity can be threatened by armies from without and terrorism and separatism from within. If free speech is not directly inciting a rebellion, it cannot be said to have done violence to sovereignty and integrity.

2. security of the state – the security of the state is covered by the Official Secrets Act. There is no need to place further restrictions on expression.

3. friendly relations with foreign states – friendly relations with foreign states are not maintained by sacrificing your core values or interests. India could probably maintain friendly relations with Pakistan by giving up Kashmir and with China by giving up Arunachal Pradesh...so why doesn't anyone consider that?

4. public order – if taken to mean wide-scale rioting, this falls under the harm principle and a legitimate restriction on free speech.

5. preserving decency – what is the empirical yardstick for measuring decency? There may be a few basic values we might all agree on, such as a ban on public nudity, but what formula does one use to measure decency or the lack thereof?

6. preserving morality – what is this, Saudi Arabia? Should we start stoning women and not let them drive too?

Indians have a choice – they can remain emotionally stunted, psychologically hurt by every little incident, or they can embrace democracy and advanced citizenship. But perhaps India is not ready for democracy, not with around 40% of its population illiterate and most of the literate population accustomed to learning by rote than actual intellectual engagement and original thought. Perhaps lessons in liberty need to be paid for in blood and not enough blood has yet been spilt on the subcontinent...

Hair-Trigger Hysteria

One glaring difference between India and a mature democracy is that in India, any group with a grudge and the goons to back it can resort to violence or the threat of violence to shut down free speech. Extremist Hindu groups attack shops selling Valentine’s Day cards, fundamentalist Muslim clerics urge their followers not to sing the national anthem, and Christians attempt to shut down screenings of the allegedly blasphemous The Da Vinci Code. In this kindergarten of religious communities, freedom of expression has been one of the first casualties.

Maqbool Fida Husain is a Maharastrian artist with middling talent who managed to gatecrash into the limelight on the back of his controversial paintings. Two days ago, it was made public that the Government of the Arab state of Qatar has offered him citizenship (which he may not have applied for) and which has been accepted. The Husain case is yet another example of the hypocrisy that the Government of India continues to practice - on the one hand, freedom of expression is proclaimed, but on the other, the state has done an abysmal job of defending it.

Husain is no stranger to controversies. His depiction of Hindu deities in the nude or performing sexual acts enraged Hindu nationalists in 1996 (though the paintings themselves were from the 1970s), while he had to redact his film, Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities (2004), owing to strong Muslim opposition to the song Noor-un-Ala-Noor (they claimed it was blasphemous as it contained lines from the Qur'an). Husain also found himself in hot water when he painted India as a nude woman (Mother India, 2006), the names of the states written on various parts of her body. Hindu nationalists have been behind many vicious campaigns against Husain, while some have petitioned that he be awarded the Bharat Ratna because "life and work are beginning to serve as an allegory for the changing modalities of the secular in modern India — and the challenges that the narrative of the nation holds for many."

Had this been the end of the matter, it could all have been chalked up to "crazy nationalists" and India's unique brand of two-faced democracy. Although he deeply regrets the way Husain was treated and forced into an exile because of mob culture, another Indian artist, Satish Gujral, has poignantly asked on the record whether [Husain] will be bold enough to treat icons of Islam in the same manner. Meenaxi was apologised for and withdrawn from the theatres the day after it was released, while Husain's paintings have gone on to sell for millions of dollars and breaking records at Christie's South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale.

In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of twelve cartoons depicting the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (salla Allaahu 'alayhi wa salaam) as a terrorist. Haji Mohammed Yaqoob Qureshi, a minister in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, publicly offered a US $11 million bounty for beheading the Danish cartoonists who had drawn the Prophet Mohammed. When Dinamalar, a leading daily in Tamil Nadu, reprinted the cartoons so that Tamilians can see what the brouhaha was all about, their office was stoned and four public buses were burned. The Government of India recalled their Ambassador to Copenhagen in protest. The following year, in the hi-tech city of Hyderabad, three legislators of a local Islamic party, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), roughed up Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi author critical of her country’s treatment of its Hindu minority and Islam’s treatment of women. Subsequently, the government of West Bengal state in eastern India had to call in the army to quell rioters in Calcutta, whose demands included Nasreen’s expulsion from the country. Again, the pusillanimous government made a feeble speech about hurting the sentiments of the public and requested the author to leave.

Just a few weeks ago, the Shiv Sena threatened to disrupt screenings of My Name is Khan because of Shah Rukh Khan's naive statements on Pakistan. In October 2009, faced with a similar threat from another political outfit, the same producer had to publicly apologise for a film in which characters used the anglicised name Bombay rather than the official Mumbai. The state government could not curb the activities of the rogue political party in either case. In another infamous incident in 2003, a mob ransacked a reputable research institute in the western city of Pune for helping an American scholar who wrote critically about Shivaji, a revered 17th century ruler. Neither the quest for greater historical accuracy nor freedom of expression curtailed their actions. In 1989, India became the first country in the world to ban Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses – Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against the author followed press reports of protests in India. It might be noteworthy to remember that Muslims are only about 13% of the country's total population. In an overwhelmingly Hindu country, it is intriguing why the government always bends over backwards to appease the Muslim vote.

Clearly, hair-trigger hysteria is not the monopoly of any one group in India. Like little brats, they threaten unpleasant consequences and demand attention and capitulation. However, it is of note that the government has acted against those "hurting the sentiments" of Christian and Muslim people but not against those acting against Hindu beliefs (on the issue of censorship itself, I have written previously - A Rudderless Party, August 25, 2009). Rushdie's book was banned, Nasreen asked to leave the country, and although a citizen filed a criminal case against UP Minister MY Qureshi's blatant lack of civilised behaviour, nothing came of the case. Nafisa Ali has been quite vocal about the rights of Husain, but she has nowhere been heard commenting on the Danish cartoons or Rushdie's unfair treatment. Hindu sensitivities are left to brigands to defend and clueless and unsophisticated retards that they are, outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and the Shiv Sena fall into the trap and obfuscate the issue with their very presence. So freedom of expression is not only an iffy proposition for successive Congress governments and the Indian intelligentsia, it is also an idea that is applied selectively.

Obviously, it would be better if Indian politicians were literate and understood the laws they are meant to uphold, but in the meantime, can we please just expect the violations of our civic rights to be consistent?

Tango with the Dragon

India is in a tough neighbourhood - from the very moment of independence, it has been locked in a definitional struggle with Pakistan, has fought and lost a border war with China, and has to contend with Nepal and Sri Lanka snuggling up to their (India's) one-time conquerors, the Chinese. In addition, Chinese military aid - not only in terms of small arms and armour but also technology transfers of missile systems and nuclear weapons - to Pakistan has effectively created a cordon in the North. China has, in the past, threatened India with the possibility of opening a second front during India's conflicts with Pakistan in 1965, 1971, and during Kargil in 1999. Furthermore, the flow of increasingly sophisticated weapons to the Maoist Naxals spread over 180 districts and ten states has kept India preoccupied with their internal problems. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 weakened India's position further, but the recent overthrow of the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan has given India renewed hope to salvage the geopolitics of South Asia in its favour. Nonetheless, South Asia remains one of the most dangerous places in the world - in 2008 alone, there were 280 violations of the Indian border by Chinese troops, and in the small and mountainous terrain of Kashmir, Islam, unresolved border issues, and three nuclear powers with four wars between them come together.

India's problems with China stem from the Chinese invasion of India in 1962 and the resulting annexation of Aksai Chin (38,000 sq. kms). Since then, India has had an inferiority complex regarding the Chinese, which feeds well into the great Han chauvinism. India's economic and military weakness coupled with the utter lack of resolve to address that has left India kow-towing to Beijing (In an utter disregard for etiquette, Beijing summoned the Indian Ambassador at 02 00 to protest against Tibetan demonstrations in India ahead of the Olympic Games). That India needs to strengthen its border defences, its deterrent capability (nuclear as well as conventional), and its economy (which would buy it influence in the world) is obvious, and Indian leaders should be mindful that soft power is meaningless unless backed by hard power. However, beyond the sabre-rattling and hard power, what options are open to India?

TIBET

One of the most contentious issues between India and China has been the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his people on the Indian soil. The Chinese see in the Dalai Lama not a venerable saintly figure but a dangerous politician. They perceive the Dalai Lama as the figurehead for future Western interference in Tibet, and suspect that the trouble in Tibet just before the Olympic Games in 2008 was inspired by the Dalai Lama. India on its part tries to mollycoddle China by assuring it that its soil wouldn't be allowed to be used for any anti-China activities. Yet the suspicions remain. China is unnerved by the tremendous popularity the Dalai Lama enjoys in Tibet even to this day despite his exile for half-a-century. In the 1980s, when his representatives were allowed by the Chinese authorities to visit Tibet, the hearty welcome they received rattled the Chinese leadership. The Chinese attitude towards the Dalai Lama and his people hardened quite a bit after that. No effort is spared by China to browbeat countries that extend an invitation to the Dalai Lama to revoke it. Very recently it pressurised Sri Lanka into withdrawing its invitation to him, and Barack Obama of the United States and Kevin Rudd of Australia have refused to meet him when he visits their respective countries.

The reality of the matter is that this is a lost cause. Within Tibet, any hint of opposition is met with skull-crushing force (as was witnessed in March 1959 and March 2008 just before the Olympics). Outside Tibet, Tibetans are largely a forgotten community except by the occasional celebrity (Richard Gere, for instance) who is probably in the twilight of his/her own career too. It was heartening to see protests worldwide on the eve of the Olympic Games, and equally disappointing to see how the Indian Government, upon receiving a strong protest from the Chinese, moved to disallow public demonstrations and denied Tibetans media space. In any case, even supporting the Tibetan cause with weapons and other war-making materiel is unrealistic against the ruthless Chinese state machinery - if aid of such sort is given to the Tibetans by any country, it must be in a completely dissociated manner and only at the request of a majority of Tibet's Government in exile as the consequences could be severe for the Tibetans.

India has a choice - it can keep playing the Tibet card, which would keep the sores in Indo-Chinese relations fresh and would invite Chinese retaliation elsewhere: the United Nations Security Council, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, trans-regional groupings, Pakistan. On the other hand, it can take a realpolitik view of its own interests and abandon Tibet in exchange for Chinese cooperation on the diplomatic front and the recognition of Sikkim as an integral part of India. China would also have to stop supplying arms to the Naxals (this in itself will not solve the problem - arms will flow from elsewhere but the supply will most definitely be reduced. If cooperation on this issue is not forthcoming, India can strongly consider providing arms and training to the Uighur tribes; Ronald Reagan has already stirred the hornet's nest by arming the Taliban, and a few more Uighur will not add to the instability in the world, but it will add to China's woes). Both, Indian aloofness from the Tibetan cause and China's new-found desire to cooperate with India are easily verifiable. Although not much in itself, this would be a good confidence-building measure.

AKSAI CHIN

Another reality Indians need to face is that short of war, Aksai Chin is lost forever. The Chinese will not suddenly give it up out of the goodness of their heart, nor will they succumb to pressure. Nearly 50 years after the war, it would take a brave government to come forward and admit to its double mistake - one of taking it, and another stubbornly insisting that it rightfully belongs to them. In any case, China actually believes that they have a right to Aksai Chin. Besides, the loss of face would be tremendous if China were seen to be yielding to Indian diplomatic pressure, which they have no need to do owing to their military, economic, and diplomatic strength anyway.

It would be equally hard for India to give up its claims to what they have strenuously argued as their territory. Furthermore, the publication of the White Papers detailing the talks between the Indians and the Chinese in the late 1950s and early 1960s has made the discussions public knowledge. It may be easy in a country like China to suppress information, but in India, the land of loose lips, it is almost a certainty that news about fresh negotiations and either side's bargaining chips will get out. For reasons of prestige if nothing else, neither side can be seen to give in. In addition, it is unlikely the Chinese will ever give up their claim to Aksai Chin - for them the region serves as the strategic link between Tibet and Sinkiang. The Indian discovery of illegal Chinese presence in the area in 1957 was due to road-building activity. In fact, Chou Enlai offered to make a quiet exchange during his negotiations: give up Aksai Chin and China would give up its claims on Arunachal Pradesh. For India, naturally, this sounded a little disingenuous as both pieces of land belonged to them. However, the price of military weakness, since the Indians did not learn in 712, 1192, 1757, or 1962, is loss of territory. Today, India can only offer to give China what it already has - Aksai Chin in exchange for dropping claims on Arunachal Pradesh and remaining neutral on Kashmir in exchange for recognition of the transfer of the trans-Karakoram tract from Pakistan to China in 1963. It is not sure if the Chinese would even bite: they refuse to talk about Aksai Chin any more. For them it is a settled fact. Typical Indian cravenness has meant that even their own leadership stopped talking about it. Rajiv Gandhi visited China in 1988, Narasimha Rao in 1993 and Vajpayee in 2003. No clear official position has been heard from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on Aksai Chin after the meetings despite the fact that there is a unanimous Parliament resolution of 1962 on getting that territory back. In the never-ending game of brinkmanship, India might, for its part, consider shelling parts of the Sinkiang-Tibet highway every once in a while with mortar fire, making its use uncertain.

PAKISTAN

The key issue between India and China is really Pakistan. Chinese support for Pakistan has already done tremendous damage not only to India but to the world. In the most heinous of terrorist acts, China transferred missile technology and blueprints of a nuclear device (China's fourth test) to AQ Khan and Pakistan. Apart from this, Pakistan has received other strategic aid from China. If Pakistan is a threat to India (or Israel), it is in large part due to China (while the US looked on - refer to my post, Lessons in Hegemony, of August 30, 2009). Although the damage has already been done, India must try to do some damage control - with nuclear weapons in unstable countries, the world hardly has a choice. India needs to raise an international ruckus on the AQ Khan network and use all guile, startegy, and bargaining chips available (which may not be much) to raise the profile of the AQ Khan network. Obama claims to want to reduce the threat of nculear weapons; he even won a Nobel Prize for this "call to action." India needs to call him to action on AQ Khan. This cannot be done without the cooperation of China, the 900-pound gorilla in the United Nations Security Council. If India can play its cards right for once (to be fair, Indira Gandhi's world tour to raise support for action in East Pakistan was masterful), the cost of sticking by Pakistan can be raised significantly. And if India and China can have meaningful dialogue with each other on Aksai Chin and Tibet, China's need to play big brother to Pakistan will be considerably reduced - after all, China cosied up to Pakistan as India cosied up to the Soviet Union as the Cold War moved into the Third World. China has no intrinsic interest in being friendly to Pakistan.

The counter to this, if China refuses to, as the Americans say, play ball, is to focus determinedly on a Look East Policy (refer to my post, India's (Don't) Look East Policy, of March 13, 2009). Closer relations with Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and Australia would be a start - just as the Chinese have moved to encircle India with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal, India must adopt what Israel calls a "Periphery + 1" policy (go beyond the ring of enemy states encircling you to find allies behind enemy lines). In the 1950s, this was a real opportunity but was squandered away by Indian foreign policy obtuseness. To borrow a sentence the Chinese themselves like to use often, Beijing must be made to under stand that India will no longer “stand idly by” if China continues to counter and encircle India with impunity.

There are many other avenues for cooperation between India and China - trade will be an enormous factor, particularly as the world economy shifts its centre of gravity back towards the East. China is already India's largest trading partner, surpassing the US this year. India exports some important raw materials to China, such as steel. It is only in the interest of both countries, which still have a long way to go in terms of standards of living of their citizens, to work towards cooperation and let half-century old animosities die. Development of relations with China is a reality. The same goes for China where India is concerned. It is high time, however, India came off its schizophrenic stubbornness-obsequiousness behaviour and demonstrate that it is a strong state that won't be pushed around, but is at the same time willing to look for 21st century solutions in the 21st century.