One of my many grouses with the mainstream Indian media andby extension, with the dominant Western media, is the despicableway in which it treats Pakistan. It is as if bad news about Pakistanis always good news for the media. And if there is anything good, itis not newsworthy.
That grouse has been considerably reinforced after returning last weekfrom one of the most lively conferences I have ever participated inon Democracy in South Asiaheld in Islamabad. Hapless victim of media stereotyping, I had hardly expected such trenchant critiques of ruling class politics, US imperialism, the misuse of religion by the powerful, patriarchal traditions and so on by leading Pakistani politicians and social activists. And to boot, all that in a plush Governmentrun Convention Centre in Islamabad. This, has set me off on a mission to do my own little bit to convince victims of the mainstream media back home that there is another side to Pakistan, about which they have been deliberately kept ignorant. Voices for genuine democracy and social justice are increasingly strident in Pakistan today, and, contrary to what Indians have been tutored to believe, Pakistan is not a state on the verge of being taken over by religious radicals.
The 3day conference, organised by the Citizens Commission for Human Development of Lahore, brought together academics and social activists from South Asian countries. It was probably the first effort of its kind held in Pakistan to debate about prospects for democracy in South Asia that involved participants from these countries. Credit for this goes to Farrah Parvaiz Saleh, head of the CCHD, who conceived of the project and administered every small detail that it entailed.
In his address, Pakistani Prime Minister, Syed Yousuf Gilani talked about the movement for democracy in Pakistan and suggested that the countries in South Asia had much to learn from each others in this regard. Somewhat the same points were made by Faisal Karim Kundi, Deputy Speaker of the Pakistan National Assembly.
One of the most enriching presentations was by Raza Rabbani, Leader ofSenate, and senior leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party. He dwelt at length with the prospects of genuine democracy in Pakistan. Debunking the propaganda that Islam and democracy were incompatible, he argued that this was a convenient ploy to justify authoritarianism and deny democracy to Muslim peoples.
Thisargument, he noted, distracted attention from one of the principalcauses of undemocratic regimes in many Muslim countries,namely Western imperialism, which has a vested interest in backingsuch regimes in order to serve Western economic, political andstrategic purposes, fearing that democratic regimes would refuse totoe Western dictates. He referred to Americas strong backing to thelate Pakistani dictator Zia ulHaq, under whose rule Pakistanexperienced a long spell of brutal authoritarian rule, and whosupported American interests at the cost of those of the majority ofthe Pakistani people. Citing instances of the US actually overthrowing or undermining democraticallyelected regimes in Muslim countries, he talked about the doublestandards of Western powers in their attitude towardsIslamic movements, as exemplified in their support to such groups inthe war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and now having totallyreversed their stance. And today, despite its rhetoric aboutsupporting democracy in the Muslim world, Senator Rabbani stressed,America was consistently supporting Gen. (Retd.) Musharraf, who had nodemocratic mandate to rule Pakistan and who, he claimed, was bent onputting the Pakistani Constitution into abeyance.
Senator Rabbani noted that Pakistans survival as a federation was inevitably linked to its being a democracy. The smaller federating units must feelthat they are vital stakeholders in the system, and their economic,cultural and political grievances must be addressed. This requires, heargued, a genuine parliamentary system, not the quasipresidentialsystem that Musharraf has converted Pakistan into.
The same point was articulated equally passionately by the cricketerturned politician Imran Khan of the Tehrike Insaf party. He insisted that Musharraf had no mass support and that he was buying his survival by camouflaging himself behind the chimera of a possible takeover by Islamist radicals before Western powers.
A presentation by a young Pakistani scholar, Junaid Ahmad, dealt with the socalled Western civilisational project for the Muslim world, including Pakistan. Ahmad noted that in recent years, particularly after the events of September 11, 2001, neocons in America have been on a desperate search for moderate Muslims, that is Muslims who are moderate in terms of their attitudes towards the American establishment, rather than being committed to genuine social justice and democracy. Such moderate Muslims have little or no mass support,and are often apologists for Western hegemony. The entire project of civilising the Muslim world that the West has now taken on itself reeks of the legacy of the colonial White Mans Burden and is yet another means to bolster Western domination. In this project, key issues such as human rights, gender justice, poverty and intercommunity relations are allowed to be addressed simply through Westernfunded NGOs, which often have no organic links with themasses, rather than through political mobilization. This, in turn, has crucial consequences in terms of depoliticization of social movements and cooptation of committed social activists as these issues come to be discussed simply through conferences, rather than through mass mobilisation. Further, such Westernbacked moderate Muslims and their NGOs are, because of their financial dependence on their patrons, not allowed to effectively critique and challenge Western imperialism, the global capitalist system, the socalled war on terror and internal and external structures of oppression.
Ahmad called for the emergence of organic or socially engaged Muslimintellectuals, strongly rooted in their communities, working together in solidarity with others against all forms of oppression, including in the name of religion. In these intellectuals could be inspired by socially liberative understandings of their own faiths.
Equally trenchant critiques of ruling class politics and alliances with imperialism were articulated by some Indian participants. Karen Gabriel of the Centre for Womens Development, New Delhi, spoke about the statesponsored virtual genocidal attacks on Muslims in Gujarat, and of how these and other victims of Hindu chauvinism, often in league with sections of the state machinery, seriously question Indias claims to being the worlds largest democracy. P.K.Vijayan from Delhi University argued on similar lines, critiquing BrahminicalHinduism from a Dalit or low caste point of view, stressing that it was wholly opposed to any sense of democracy. Azim Ahmad Khan, Director of the World Learning Programme, Jaipur, elaborated on this point by highlighting the oppressive conditions under which the vast majority of Indias Dalits continue to groan under, suggesting, therefore, that formal democracy, in the form of voting rights to all citizens, was hardly enough to guarantee substantive democracy interms of social and economic power.
My own presentation was on the debate about Islam and democracy, inwhich I sought to problematise the question by pointing to the diverseunderstandings of both Islam and democracy. Based on a case study ofthree noted Indian Muslim scholars, I sought to argue against thetendency to essentialise Islam and Muslims (any other religious community, for that matter) and pointed out the possibility of generating contextually relevant understandings of Islam (and other faiths) that are genuinely rooted in the quest for comprehensive social justice and interfaith solidarity against oppression and other such democratic demands. My paper also entailed a critique of liberaldemocracy, arguing that it was unable (and unwilling, too) to dealeffectively with structures of economic, cultural and politicaloppression and hegemony.
Peopletopeople contact in this and similar ways, I can wager, I tell Farrah as I reluctantly head for the airport to get back to Delhi, holdsmuch more promise for peace and democracy in our common South Asianregion than sombre deliberations between stiffnecked sarkari babuswho are often guided by their illintentioned notions of nationalinterest. And Farrah ji nods and smiles in that ethereal style ofhers, while my eyes get clouded at the thought of my imminentdeparture and the prospect that I might never again meet the wonderfulfriends I have made in Islamabad on this trip.
(The writer can be reached at ysikandgmail.com)
