EDITORIAL
Matter for probe
There is a
compelling reason to institute a probe into the grenade
attack on the Good Shepherd Mission School in Pulwama
district on Saturday. The probe should be thorough. It
should cover whether this second attempt on the school in
a week was part of a large design. According to reports
from Srinagar, this was the third bid to scare the school
authorities into submission. A few days ago, the
suspected militants had fired on the tyres of an empty
bus of the same school. This incident had taken place
within months of the first grenade being hurled on its
building. Such dastardly actions against a school
spreading education in a remote corner of the State serve
to confirm a disturbing feedback from Kashmir in
particular. Discontent is said to be simmering in a
rabidly fundamentalist section of the local
intelligentsia against the domination of the Christian
educational institutions. There are allegations, mostly
unsubstantiated, that these bodies are actually being
used to convert the local Muslim population to
Christianity. In the case of Pulwama school also, it has
been alleged that its patron, belonging to the
Netherlands, was changing the religion of the people
behind the facade of teaching them how to read and write.
Not very long ago, one had heard the first murmuring of
protest against such tempering with one’s faith. In
fact, young Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq, who is a top
religious figure apart from being a political leader, had
made an attempt to mobilise Muslim clerics in the middle
of this year to prevent the conversions besides carrying
out certain social reforms.
Why should the Pulwama
school incidents be taken seriously? It is because they
have been marked by an open use of ammunition. These
wicked efforts are stated to be merely directed at
ensuring that the management gives up its responsibility.
If true, nothing can be more alarming than the manner in
which this objective is being sought to be achieved. One
can hardly disagree that although the people are itching
and heading for peace, there is no dearth of arms and
ammunition available in the Valley in particular. There
can be a serious turn in the situation if those wanting
the Christian institutions to fold up actually gun for
them or provoke the militants to target them. This may,
in turn, throw a spanner in the improvement in the
overall environment. Should one be accused of nursing
exaggerated notions about the situation, there is a need
to recall all that had happened early in the last decade.
In the nineties, the militants would specifically
eliminate the members of the Kashmiri Pandit community.
Not many will initially agree that there would ever be
communal divide in view of the centuries’ old bonds
between the Pandits and the Muslim majority. However,
everybody had watched in stunned silence as the exodus of
the Pandits had taken place. Gun-totting militants were
able to cause serious damage to a secular and vibrant
society.
Therefore, nobody should
underestimate the mischief of the gun. There have been
killings in the past to scare away the Sikhs residing in
small pockets all over the Valley. Such nefarious
attempts have failed because of their strong unity. In
this context, no less significant has been the concern
for the safety and security of the Sikhs shown by the
Muslim leaders of all hues. Sympathy and compassion
should mark everybody’s approach towards the
Christians as well. They constitute a negligible part of
the population. But their contribution to the State is,
indeed, historic. St Joseph’s hospital in Baramulla
bears testimony to the fact that they religiously retain
their sense of service to the people despite their
selfless nuns and doctors having been subjected to
brutalities by the tribal invaders in 1947. A school by
the same name caters to more than 2000 local students in
the highly sensitive border district. Who can ignore the
role of the Tyndale Biscoe School in Srinagar? This
oldest school in Kashmir has educated generations of
families over the years. There is no evidence to suggest
that the students have ceased to be devout Muslims or
Hindus. It was still not clear why this pioneering
institution of the State was not included in President
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s itinerary during his last visit
to Srinagar. There are many more such Christian schools
which maintain the highest standards of education. Any
person grudging their very existence should, in fact, try
to emulate them in their sphere of activity. There is no
point in physically targetting them. By going deep into
the reasons for the Pulwama incidents, it should be easy
to trace whether a planned offensive is really afoot to
force the Christian institutions to pull down their
shutters. An impartial inquiry may also possibly throw up
concrete suggestions for quick remedial and
reconciliation efforts.
Fast, don’t feast
President A.P.J.
Abdul Kalam has done it again. He has dispensed with the
practice of Rashtrapati Bhawan’s ceremonial Iftar
party. He deserves kudos for this. As everyone knows,
only the rich and the influential get invited to the
gatherings at such high places. Instead of religious
meetings, they turn out to be the occasions for all those
present to build up social and political contacts. This
is, logical speaking, contrary to the spirit of the holy
month of Ramzan when the emphasis should be on fasting
and offering charities. In a praiseworthy move, the
President has decided to use his entire Iftar budget for
the benefit of poor children. It will be spent to buy
sweets, ration as well as quilts for the children in 11
orphanages and children’s homes in the neighbouring
districts of the national capital. The intended
beneficiaries have been selected with great care. The
President, it seems, had originally planned to personally
visit all these places. However, he has dropped the idea
as he does not want his act of charity to be publicised.
Nevertheless, it will be
unfortunate, indeed, if the President’s message
doesn’t percolate down the political class.
Ostentatious Iftar parties are organised in New Delhi, in
particular, and elsewhere by the political big-wigs to
test and enlarge their support base. The wastage of food
at such get-togethers has to be seen to be believed.
Certainly, such a luxurious practice does not help
anybody’s religious convictions. The pious month of
Ramzan is meant to be observed with strict
self-discipline, simplicity and respect for the feelings
of the less fortunate sections of society. All those who
are well-heeled should be sparing a thought for those who
can’t afford be in their company. That is the
positive signal that the President has sought to give to
a society which has clearly lost sight of its priorities.
There have been many occasions in the past when the
President has spoken up for the downtrodden. His
assertion that he will not have a rest till all those
below the poverty line rise from their state of abyss is
the most inspiring. One can’t also ignore his
consistent emphasis to inter-act with children in all
states to teach them to think and aim high. One may also
recall that the President had spent his birthday at an
all-religious meeting in Gujarat and not in Rashtrapati
Bhawan. It was his way of drawing attention to the need
for preserving communal harmony in the country. By his
latest action, he has left little doubt about what he
would like his fellow country men to do in the wider
interest of society and the nation.
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India
for peace constituency in Pakistan
By
Samuel Baid
Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpavee told the
Combined Commanders’ Conference of
the three Services in New Delhi on
November 1 that India’s peace
gestures towards Pakistan were aimed at
building a constituency for peace in that
country. "Our constant effort is to
encourage the elements in Pakistan who
recognise the folly of permanent
hostility towards India," he said.
Surely,
India’s proposal of 12 Confidence
Building Measures offered to Pakistan on
October 22 was an attempt to bring about
a revolutionary change in India-Pak
relations through facilitating easy
people-to-people contacts between the two
countries. There is no dearth of people
in Pakistan who strongly believe that
Kashmir should not get priority over
peace between the two neighbours.
Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan
told NDTV in the programme
"Muqabla" on November 1 that
Kashmir must be resolved but let there be
peace first.
True, the
Indian proposals did not mention Kashmir
but it must not be presumed that New
Delhi was trying to by-pass it. India
believes Kashmir is a highly emotive
issue, which can be discussed in an
atmosphere of peace sans cross-border
terrorist crimes. The text of the Shimla
Agreement to which both countries are
committed, prioritises step-by-step
normalisation over a discussion on
Kashmir. A discussion on a final
settlement of Kashmir forms part of the
last line of the last paragraph of the
Shimla Agreement. Going back into
history, one recalls that the United
Nations, too, in its resolutions of
August 13, 1948 and January 5, 1949 had
made peaceful conditions an essential
prerequisite for holding plebiscite in
Jammu and Kashmir. The onus for creating
these conditions was on Pakistan as an
aggressor. These resolutions became
defunct because despite its commitment to
them Pakistan refused to fulfil their
preconditions - withdrawal of its troops,
invading tribals and its nationals from
territories it occupied through this
aggression.
It is a
big joke that Pakistan insists on the
very UN resolutions, which it flouted and
killed about 50 years, as a pre-condition
for normalising relations with India.
Pakistan rejected Jawaharlal Nehru’s
proposal for a no-war pact in December
1949 saying Kashmir should be resolved
first. In 1965 Ayub Khan tried to resolve
it through a second invasion of Kashmir.
In 1972, India signed the Shimla
Agreement to rehabilitate defeated and
truncated Pakistan and pave the way for
permanent peaceful coexistence. Pakistan
repaid India by starting cross-border
terrorism in 1989. Mr.Vajpayee bussed to
Lahore in February 1999 and even visited
Minar-e-Pakistan as a reassurance to
those Pakistanis who complained India had
not accepted this country’s
ideological foundations. Many Pakistanis
agree that it was the greatest gesture
shown by any Indian leader to assume that
India had no reservations about the
two-nation theory, which created
Pakistan. (The Minar-e-Pakistan stands
where the Muslim League under the
leadership of Mr.Mohammed Ali Jinnah
passed the two-nation theory resolution
on March 23, 1940). The Lahore
Declaration signed by Mr.Vajpayee and his
Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif aimed
at starting a new chapter of peace
between their countries. But his Army
Chief Gen. Peryez Musharraf sabotaged
this peace plan by invading Kargil in May
that year. The defeat, humiliation and
thousands of casualties on
Pakistan’s side have not made him
repentant.
Still
Mr.Vajpayee invited him to Agra for peace
talks in July 2001. General Musharraf s
insistence on Kashmir didn’t allow
any results. Now India’s latest
move, as says Mr.Vajpayee, is aimed at
Pakistanis who want peace in the
sub-continent. India’s 12 CBMs have
already been extensively reported and
commented upon by the national press.
Countries who desire good relations
between India and Pakistan have welcomed
them. Above all, the people of Pakistan
and occupied Kashmir have expressed their
excitement about them. The Indian
proposals include resumption of sporting
ties, a bus service between Srinagar and
Muzaffarabad in occupied Kashmir,
restoration of rail (Samjhauta) and air
links, revival of train service between
Khokrapar (in Rajasthan) and Munnabao (in
Sindh) and a ferry service between Mumbai
and Karachi. The Khokrapar-Munnabao train
service was stopped after the 1965 war.
The people of Sindh, who want to travel
to India, have to all the way come to
Islamabad for visa and then to Lahore if
they want to take the bus. In the 1980s,
there was a move to reactivate this line
but the ISI killed this plan because it
was not willing to trust Sindhis and
Muhajirs. The ferry service also stopped
after 1965 war. It was extensively used
by refugees fleeing Karachi to Bombay and
vice versa in 1947.
Reports
from Islamabad suggested that that the
Government of Pakistan was taken aback by
the Indian proposals. There was
confusion. Foreign Minister Khurshid
Mehmood Kasuri said Pakistan would give a
positive reply but Information Minister
Sheikh Rashid said it was India’s
trick. But then India, too, was taken
aback by Pakistan’s counter-CBMs
which was announced in Islamabad on
October 29. Some of these CBMs were
suspect in India. India had suggested a
bus service between Srinagar and
Muzaffarabad. Pakistan suspected India
was trying to get the LoC legitimised as
a permanent border and hence its
counter-proposal that the UN should man
the checkpoints and issue travel
documents. In India it was suspected to
be a crude ploy by Pakistan to
internationalise the Kashmir question.
It looked
Pakistan was trying to trivialise the
Indian CBMs when it proposed to give 100
scholarships for graduate, and post-
graduate students from Jammu and Kashmir.
It further said it would give free
treatment to disabled persons, widows,
and victims of rape affected by
"Operations of agencies". It
wanted Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch to help implement this
scheme. In India this was considered
puerile and mischievous. Also, the poor
state of hospitals, doctors and nurses in
Pakistan is well known. No Pakistani,,
who has the means, would risk his life
going to a hospital in the country.
Similar is the state of the education
system in the country.
The offer
of treatment of rape victims by a country
where jails are filled with such victims
on charges under the draconian Hadood
ordinance is another joke. The graph of
rape is high in Pakistan. But what is
worse is that this ordinance turns life
into a nightmare for a traumatised rape
victim. A woman who complains of rape
must produce four God fearing Muslim male
eye-witnesses. If she cannot (and, she
can never), she is charged with adultery
under this ordinance. The prescribed
punishment for Adultery is stoning to
death. 1£ suppose, the allegedly raped
woman go to Pakistan, will the Government
ignore this ordinance in their case?
Anyway, what treatment Pakistan has in
mind for rape victims? Will it not be
considered churlish on the part of India
if to match the Pakistani mischief, it
were to invite for medical treatment
victims of Sunni gangs and military
atrocities in Northern Areas of occupied
Kashmir? It is no secrets that Kashmiris
in Northern Areas live without civil
rights, civil amenities and educational
and medical facilities.
India's 12
CBMs reflect its leaders' vision of the
future of the sub-continent where
economic forces will determine bilateral
and regional relations and where
religious hatred will gradually lose its
sting. Since Mr Vajpayee offered the hand
of friendship to Pakistan in Srinagar, it
has become evident more than ever before
that the people on both sides of the
border are equally eager for peace.
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A
testing time for Islam
By
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Can Islam,
which teaches non-violence, be of
relevance in the present age, and assume
a superior position once again in the new
situations of today?
The answer
is entirely in the affirmative. The truth
is that Islam’s being a peaceful
religion shows that it is an eternal
religion. Had it been a religion of
violence, it would not have been eternal.
For, in modern times, the way of violence
has been totally rejected by contemporary
thinking. Now, only that system is worthy
of consideration and acceptance the
teachings of which are based on peace and
non-violence.
Modern
thinking, for example, has rejected
communism. One of the major reasons was
that communism had to be sustained by
violence. And under no circumstances is
violence acceptable to the modern mind.
Nazism and
Fascism too have been rejected on similar
grounds. Modern mall, therefore,
disapproves of both religious and
non-religious extremism, because they
lead man ultimately to violence. But
Islam is a religion of nature. It has
field violence as inadmissible from the
outset. Islam has been an upholder of
peace, not violence, from day one.
In the
past, Islam played a great role in the
development of humanity, as a result of
which human history entered a new age of
progress and development. The time has
come today for Islam to play a great
constructive role, leading human history
once again into a new age of progress.
What is
called scientific or technical progress
is the result of the discovery of some of
the great secrets of nature. But if
nature and its mysteries have always
existed in our world, why has there been
such a long delay in their discovery? Why
could not the scientific advancement of
the fast few hundred years have been made
thousands of years ago?
The reason
was that in ancient times and science
(divine knowledge and human knowledge)
being so closedly linked with one
another, scientific enquiry was anathema
to men of religion. Religious presecution
had then become an insuperable obstacle
to the progress of science.
What Islam
did was separate religion (which had
become, in essence, a set of
irrational beliefs) from scientific
research and investigation. For instance,
eclipses of the sun and moon had been
linked with human destiny. The Prophet
declared that eclipses had nothing to do
with the lot of human beings. These were
astronomical events, not events
pertaining to the fate of mankind.
In this
connection, an incident of the
pollination of dates is recorded in the
books of Hadith how the Prophet of Islam
observed that in worldly matters (such as
the pollination of date palms) "you
should act according to your experience,
as you know these matters better."
This meant
delinking religion and science from one
another. In this way scientific research
acquired an atmosphere of freedom for its
functioning. For the first time in human
history, science (human knowledge) could
he developed freely without the
intervention of religion. And advancing
gradually, it culminated in the
attainments of the modern age.
But today,
man is again facing an even greater
problem. That is, despite the
extraordinary progress made in the field
of science and technology; human beings
are confronted with various kinds of
problems, without there being any
solution in sight. All these problems
have resulted from not knowing the limit
of freedom.
Modern man
aspired to freedom as the highest good,
but once having reached this goal he was
unable to set reasonable limits to
freedom. In consequence, unrestrained
freedom descended into anarchy and
lawlessness. This is the actual cause of
many of the problems which are emerging
in modern times in western society.
Now man
requires an ideology, which delimits his
freedon, drawing the line between
desirable and undesirable freedom. And it
is only Islam, which can provide him with
such an ideology.
Now is the
time for this ideology to be presented to
man, who is ready and waiting to accept
it. After the fall of communism (1991),
the world is faced with an ideological
vacuum. This vacuum can be filled by
Islam alone. In the present world the
developed countries have become economic
or military superpowers, but the place is
vacant for an ideological superpower, and
that, potentially belongs to Islam.
There is
only one obstacle in converting a great
potential into a reality in favour of
Islam. And that is the repeated recourse
to violence by Muslim movements in modern
times. Such action has presented Islam
before the world in the guise of a
violent religion. For this reason the man
of today shies away from Islam. He fails
to study Islam objectively.
If this
barrier could be removed and Islam once
again brought before the world as a
non-violent religion, or as a peaceful
social system, then once again humanity
would accept it, recognising it to be the
voice of its own nature.
Modern man
is in need of a new religion or a new
system, based on peace. It should be free
from superstitious beliefs, and should
provide the answers to deep psychological
questions. Its principles should not
clash with scientific realities.
Today no
religion but Islam can lay such positive
claims to acceptance, for it is Islam and
Islam alone which fulfils all these
conditions. Individually, there are many
men and women today who, after having
studied Islam, have acknowledged these
unique qualities in Islam. Some have
acknowledged them in theory, while others
have gone ahead and accepted Islam in
practice. (CNF)
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The
ethics of the future
By P.R. Gupte
Modern societies
suffer from a distorted relationship to time. A
major contradiction is at work: on the one hand,
societies need to project themselves into the
future in order to survive and prosper. On the
other hand, they must increasingly act in
‘real time’ and adopt short-term
strategies to cope with the challenges of
globalisation while facing the onslaught of new
technologies. There is no escape; it seems, from
the tyranny of emergency, financial markets, the
media, politics (especially come election time)
and development aid, all march to the same tune,
as for Dilbert, the cartoon character lost in his
cubicle world, the horizon of modern societies
has shrunk, in time and in space. Entire systems
of thought and long-term representation seem to
have collapsed and, with them, the references to
the idea of a common project. Emergency has
become "a mode of destruction of time, an
active negation of utopia" (Zaki Laidi), one
with ominous consequences. "All over the
world," remarks Federico Mayor,
Director-General of the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation, "the citizens of today are
claiming rights over the citizens of tomorrow,
threatening their well-being and at times their
lives".
Far from a passing
phenomenon, the logic of emergency is fast
becoming a permanent feature of our societies and
of our policies, affecting all social processes
and demanding immediate results. And yet, as
evidenced by the contradictions of humanitarian
aid or, in Asia, of the struggle against
unemployment, it is at best unclear what impact
this emphasis on short-term and emergency
measures can have on long-term problems.
How can we rebuild
a sense of time in an age of accelerated change
and globalisation? Two obstacles stand in the
way. One is the ethical dominance of the social
contract model, which establishes reciprocal
obligations between contemporaries to encompass
future citizens, with whom we entertain a totally
asymmetrical relationship, as suggested by the
Belgian philosopher Francois Ost. Another
obstacle is what one could call the "time
Myopia" of today, which separates us from
our past and our future. More and more,
especially in the West, the acceleration of
change is used as an excuse to legitimise our
blindness to the future or to claim that the
future is unthinkable. Is it a surprise then that
our future-deprived societies should cling to the
motto of flexibility? The culture of the
"just in time" finds itself
increasingly at odds with that of the long-term,
which as yet remains the only context in which
genuine development strategies can be
implemented’, notes the French futurist
Hugues de Jouvenel.
Rehabilitating the
long-term means that social players and
decision-makers will have to stop tinkering with
the present and start anticipating. Great
transformations take time; one, sometimes several
generations may elapse before we reap the fruits
of our labour. The fate of future generations
will increasingly depend on our ability to enrich
the present with a long-term vision. What is
required is not new. "This ethics of the
future", says Federico Mayor, "is an
ethics of farmers. It consists in transmitting a
heritage". The reinforcement of anticipation
and future-oriented strategic planning capacities
is therefore a priority for governments,
international organisations, scientific
institutions, social players and the private
sector.
UNESCO has taken
steps in that direction in the past few years in
setting up the Analysis and Forecasting Unit;
with the cooperation of Candido Medes, president
of the Senior Board of the International Social
Sciences Council, it convened an international
meeting in July 2003 in Rio de Janeiro on
"the ethics of the future". The UN
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, also recently set
up within his office a Strategic Planning Unit,
to identify emerging global trends and issues. He
also proposed an Assembly to prepare for the 21
century.
But we need to go
further. As Federico Mayor stated, "If we do
not act ‘in time’, future generations
will not have the time to act at all: they will
become prisoners of processes that will have
become unmanageable" – population
growth, degradation of the global environment,
growing inequalities between North and South and
within societies, rampant social and urban
apartheid, threats to democracy, ubiquitous
control, increasing gap between
"info-rich" and "info-poor".
Five years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio,
Agenda 21 remains, for the most part, a dead
letter. Some have spoken of "Rio plus
five". Shouldn’t we rather say
"Rio minus five"? How long can we
afford the luxury of inaction? What price for
inertia? Isn’t it time for an ethics of the
future?
Responsibility,
precaution, and heritage: building an ethics of
the future entails a radical evolution in our
understanding of these key concepts.
Responsibility
traditionally related to past actions only. It
should now also be turned towards the distant
future, as Hans Jonas suggested in the
responsibility principle. What has been entrusted
to us by nature and by past generations is
fundamentally fragile and perishable: life, the
earth, the city itself. Our sense of
responsibility toward them is a condition of
their survival. Indeed, no institutional system
can endure "if it is not supported by a will
to live together… When this will collapse,
the political organisation unravels, and
quickly" (Pal Ricoeur).
In similar
fashion, the principle of precaution has now
become an accepted staple of international
negotiations. Strategic planning and anticipation
must indeed learn to take into account the
unlikely, the uncertain, even the unforeseeable
– in a world, learn to manage risk.
Precaution is a necessity in an age of rapid
scientific and technological change, and at a
time of doubt and uncertainty.
Heritage is
something we build daily: "our heritage is
not willed to us," a French poet wisely
wrote after World War II. Its role in human
affairs is not so much to transmit objects or to
perpetuate values, as it is "to establish a
dynamic sense of solidarity between generations,
that is to give a meaning to the perpetuation of
the human species" (Martine
Remond-Gouilloud). In this perspective, the
meaning of heritage extends beyond stones. It
encompasses the intangible and the symbolic, the
ethical, the ecological, the genetic. With this
in mind, UNESCO’s international Bioethics
Committee prepared a draft declaration on the
protection of the human genome, which was
submitted, to UNESCO’s General Conference in
October. Heritage thus becomes a foundation of
human responsibility toward future generations,
provided it is conceived as a living treasure,
for "in the absence of a link between the
past and the future, any reference to tradition
is doomed to appear as an ideological conceit, or
worse as a regressive fundamentalism"
(Francios Ost).
These principles,
and others, should guide our thoughts as we move
ahead in the 21st century. As the
seventeenth-century French philosopher Pascal
wrote: "Let us endeavour to think well: here
is the principle of morals". Between the
social compact and utopia, we must steer a path
that will bring closer to us the horizon of the
future, through the designing of intermediate
projects still within our reach. "We are
hurtling into the future without any brakes and
in conditions of zero visibility. Yet, the faster
a car goes, the brighter its headlights must
be", Federico Mayor has warned.
Caring about the
future has profound political implications
whether in the West, the East, or the South; the
crisis of politics has coincided to a large event
with a "crisis of the future". Time has
come to remind ourselves of Max Weber’s
warning that "the proper business of the
political leader is the future and responsibility
toward the future", that the business of
politics is to manage time to shape it. An ethics
of the future is quite simply an ethics of time,
which rehabilitates not only the future itself,
but also the past and the present. Indeed, our
behaviour toward the living is usually highly
correlated with our behaviour toward the past and
future generations. Those who would have us
ignore the plight of the poor and the excluded
are usually the same who would have us turn a
blind eye on disappearing languages or ignore the
hole in the ozone layer. Sharing with present
generations and caring for future generations are
intimately related.
An ethics of the
future will be useless if it is not translated
into educational, technological, economic,
financial and political measures, laying the
foundations for a genuinely human, sustainable
development. For millions of human beings, an
ethics of the future would bring the promises of
the future, and the some very concrete results,
closer to the present. As Craig Keiburger,
19-year old founder of Free the Children, put it:
"it also takes a child to raise a
village". To paraphrase a great lawyer, the
future delayed is the future denied. INAV
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