[Reader-list] On Free and Fearless Speech and Listening

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All,

I have been following with some interest the exchange occasioned by a 
posting (an announcement/invitation , actually) that called for people 
to join a demonstration against the oppression of Muslim women by extra 
judicial bodies like 'Shariah Jamaat's' through instruments such as 
Fatwas. The invitation was issued by several organizations and groups 
based in Mumbai (Awaaz-e-Niswaan, Akshara, Forum Against Oppression of 
Women, Hukook-e-Niswaan, Mahila Sanghatana, India Centre For Human 
Rights, PUKAR (Gender & Space project), Special Cell for Women and 
Children, Women's Research and Action Group). The posting was made on 
the 21st of of July, and by the next morning, had received a rejoinder 
from a Ms. Vedavati Ravindra Jogi that responded to the posting by 
stating that as "demonstrations are of no use...muslims are not 
accepting common civil code under the pretext of "secularism, pluralism' 
etc.etc. first ask them to accept the law of the land or else pack them 
off to pakistan or any arab country."

Vedavati Jogi's posting received several critical responses. And she 
retaliated by pitching the debate a notch higher, saying that she wanted 
'those muslims who did not obey the rule of the land' to be thrown out. 
and further, that the letters criticizing her, betrayed a 'typical 
muslim mind' and suggested that such people really wanted everyone to 
adopt 'shariah', and went on to state that a comment critical of the 
Indian Army's record (particularly its record of rape and violence in 
Kashmir) showed that the person who had made that comment should also be 
'thrown out of India'. Finally, she ended by offering us the personal 
revelation that she is a Maharashtrian married to a Kasmiri Pandit who 
has had to leave Kashmir, and finally demanded 'why shouldn't we throw 
you (the person who had made this particular comment) out of this country'

The response to Vedavati's rants has been equally interesting. There are 
three strands, one that chooses to engage with Vedavati, one that asks 
in horror 'Why doe . and a third that asks for people to ignore Vedavati 
and continue with other topics that might be more interesting and more 
relevant to the main purposes of this list.

But in the middle of all this, the orginal posting and it's intent is 
totally forgotten. Let us remember that the original posting was an 
invitation to demonstrate and take action against Islamic 
fundamentalists, and Muslim patriarchs and their oppression of Muslim 
women, as seen, specifically in the 'Imarana' episode. Secandly, let us 
also remember that the signatories of the invitation are a number of 
individiuals who can be identified as Muslim by their names, (they 
actually outnumber the non-Muslim signatories), and that at least two 
organizations identified as people giving this call are Awaaz e Niswan, 
and Hukook e Niswan has a special interest in the question of the rights 
of Muslim women. So you have several Muslim individuals, two 
organizations especially focused on the realities that Muslim women live 
with calling for an action critical of the patriachal tendencies 
represented by Islamic obscurantist clergy. In effect you have, Muslims, 
calling for criticism and change and transformation of the everyday 
realities that Muslims in India live with (which in fact include the 
Shariah (and its varied interpretations) and its application in legal 
and extra legal contexts in India)

In response to this, you have a person, who says that all that the 
'typical Muslim mind wants' is the application of the Shariah. And to 
amputate arms and legs. There is a patent, and farcical absurdity in 
this. If Muslim individuals, or organizations identified with the 
interests of Muslims (after all Muslim women are also Muslim) demand a 
critical attitude to the questions of the way in which Islamic tenets 
are interpreted or practiced. then they can by no stretch of imagination 
be accused of desiring the application of that which they explicitly 
oppose to the general population.

I am saying this at some length because I think the attitude that 
Vedavati Jogi's postings represents presents us with an interesting 
problem that I have encountered not only amongst people who share her 
'Hindutva' leanings. And the attitude, if we can break it down 
analytically amounts to this - first identify the speakers of a speech 
act and the issue that the speech act addresses, then attack the 
speakers, and not the speech act, third create a web of associations 
around the issue that can actually obscure the content of the speech 
act. Thus, Vedavati, identifies the speakers as Muslims or 'of a muslim 
mindset', second, she identifies the issue, shariah, third she creates a 
neat identification between the speakers and the issue, (Muslims and 
Shariah) ignoring the fact that the speakers in effect are calling for 
an action to interrogate if not criticize the issue.

Some Hindus do this when they imply that every 'Muslim' must answer for 
Godhra. Some Muslims  do this when they blow up Londoners (including 
Muslims) in 'response' to what happens in Iraq (regardless of the fact 
that some of those blown up may have been amongst the millions who 
marched against the war in Iraq in London). Some Liberal or Leftist 
Nationalist Secular ideologues do this when they igonre the fact that 
the Indian military kills three children taking part in a wedding 
procession in South Kashmir, (no mention of this recent incident in 
Parliament till date) even as they call the (lamentable) Lathi Charge in 
Gurgaon (in which no one has died, thankfully) a 'Jalianwala Bagh'. I 
have at least heard Yasin Malik, a leader of the JKLF, offer a public 
apology to the Kashmiri Pandit community for the conditions that led to 
their exile. But I am yet to hear of any high ranking officer of the  
Indian Army offering a public apology for the atrocities that it has 
committed in Kashmir, the Punjab and the North Eastern states of India. 
I have not even heard a single politician, or public figure committed to 
Indian nationalism offer that apology, or even a simple statement of 
regret for the death and disappearance of tens of thousands in these 
places.

Yet, those who suffer violence, must always be asked upon to apologize 
when some amongst their community do violence unto others. Of course I 
wish that Muslim intellectuals and public figures (and non Muslim 
intellectuals and public figures) had the decency to speak out more 
often against the fact that for a long time now, the Muslim community is 
held at ransom by thugs in the garb of maulanas, imams and 'community 
leaders'. But this is as relevent as demanding that any intellectual, or 
public figure, or decent human being who is neither an intellectual or a 
public figure, also condemn any instance of the violation of human 
dignity, no matter where it occurs, no matter who commits it, and no 
matter who is the victim. It would be intertesting to hear leaders of 
the Hindu community express their regret at the violence that no doubt 
was partially responsible for the virtual elimination of any traces of 
Buddhism in South Asia. It would be interesting to hear Communist 
intellectuals and public figures offer a trace of regret or apology for 
the several millions who were killed in the Soviet Union and in the 
Peoples Republic of China, and not try and spin a web of the 'historic 
necessities and exigencies that lay behind state terror'. The least that 
we can demand is that the burden of regret and apology fall equally 
regardless of the power of those from whome such statements are sought.

In each of these speech acts, or acts of silent complicity, lies a 
willingess to erase the particularity of suffering in different 
contexts. The pain of the lathic charged worker is actually cheapened 
when it is compared to 'Jalianwala Bagh', because the statement that 
makes the comparison actually refuses to pay attention to the specific 
condition of the lathi charged Gurgaon Worker. The death of the children 
in South Kashmir is cheapened when it goes un-remarked upon on the same 
day when tribunes make dramatic statements about a lathi charge in an 
industrial dispute. And, a particular person saying that 'all muslims 
want is the imposition of the shariah' effectively denies and cheapens 
the validity of those Muslims who happen to be critical of what passes 
for 'Islamic Law'.  In each of these instances, the force and velocity 
of the speech of the accuser derives its energy from an actual 'silence' 
about the realities either,of the accused, or of those who have to 
suffer a set of conditions that prompt the chain of speech acts.

I have written this at some length, because I take everything that 
Vedavati Ravindra Jogi and everyone else has said in this exchange with 
a great deal of seriousness. I hope that we can all remember to keep 
paying attention to the conditions that produce acts of speech and 
silence on this list, and in society, of which this list is only a 
reflection. As participants in an unmoderated list, I find the demand 
that some people 'not speak' or be 'thrown out' (remember, both Vedavati 
and some of her critics have demanded that someone - not them- be 
silenced, or 'thrown out' in different ways) unacceptable. I would like 
to continue to listen to a rich and varied conversation, and I hope that 
we can all undertake a measure of 'fearless listening' even as we 
indulge our (just and valid) right to 'fearless speech'.
I hope that people on this list can push and extend this debate further 
in conceptual terms, in the terms of ideas, and refrain from attacks on 
people, their convictions or speculations about their motivations.

regards

Shuddha

Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective)
The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India
Phone : + 91 11 23960040
Fax :     + 91 11 23943450
E Mail : shuddha at sarai.net
http://www.sarai.net
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