[Reader-list] ignore pub attack

[bipin]

Dear Joshua,

Thanks for agreeing with my views.

thanks
Bipin
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Joshua Soans 
  To: bipin 
  Cc: sarai-list 
  Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 11:37 AM
  Subject: Re: [Reader-list] ignore pub attack


  I agree with much of what Bipin says. I wrote a paper for a course in my college that is is concerned with the way the media and the public debated the issue. I attach it for your consideration. Also do check out this article in The Hoot, "Making a Muthalik of a Molehill" (
  http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3664&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=22&valid=true)


  My paper follows:


  The discussion in the public sphere that followed the Amnesia pub incident in Mangalore, particularly in the discussions in the popular media, leaves much to be desired. Images of the hapless girls being physically assaulted no doubt should leave us all indignant. Nevertheless, it is a matter of concern of how the media and others in the public sphere, in an attempt to champion progressive, liberal ideals, resorted to condemning the attack largely in cultural terms, completely side-stepping the issue of what the Constitution and the law had to say on the matter. In doing so, two grievous errors were committed. 

  Firstly, the entire incident was trivialized into a question of what constitutes ‘Indian’ culture and who had the right to enforce it.  As it is, (and as I will show) this was not merely a matter of culture; there were other factors at play. But most importantly, this allowed the Sena and their sympathizers to side-step question of the criminality of their act and instead turn it into a debate about the definition of culture, a matter so woolly and problematic, it is best left alone.

  Secondly, the rabidly liberal media did all it could to portray the cultural conservatives as nut-cases. This agenda was palpable in the Big Fight talk show on NDTV. It also becomes obvious when politicians throw around phrases like ‘Talibanization of Mangalore’[1]. Everyone with culturally conservative views was equated with hoodlums who would beat up women in the name of culture without a qualm. This stance of the media quickly isolated the conservatives who now have no reason to engage in a discourse via the popular media. An interesting manifestation of this sentiment is that under every pro-liberal reporting of the incident online, the comments pages are usually filled with anti-liberal sloganeering.

  In light of this incident, I will explore in the following essay, the importance of a layered, multidimensional approach to a discussion that follows. I will also re-examine the emphasis that Sen places on the role of Reason in public debates and his implicit stress on the synthesis of outcomes in a dialogue.

  ***

  The violence at the Amnesia pub in Mangalore on the 24th of January presents a lot of fodder for discussion on a number of themes such as culture, identity and discursive practices. There is however yet another aspect to the incident which, although to my understanding should have been at the forefront of the discussion was either entirely absent or merely given a passing mention. This is the question of what the constitution and the law has to say on the matter.

  There are several layers of understanding to the incident and the subsequent verbal jousting that took place in civil society and it is important to carefully pry apart each layer and not confuse one with the other. 

  At the most immediate level is the violation of personal rights and liberties, embodied in the brutal physical assault on the women and those men who tried to offer them protection. At this level it is inconsequential whether or not the women’s actions were outside the bounds of Indian culture. It is inconsequential whether women offered men soma in some ancient Hindu texts. Even the matter of women’s rights should be set aside for it is very easy for such arguments to degenerate into arguments about women’s roles and proper place in Indian culture and society. What is important here is that basic human freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution under article 21 were violated. The law of the land was violated and regardless of the broader implications, this violation must first be addressed.

  To assess whether or not this fundamental issue was addressed one simply need ask whether the discourse would have been any different had the victims been male or juvenile or had the incident occurred in another setting with other motives. If the answer to that is ‘yes’, then quite clearly the question of fundamental rights has been side-stepped. By definition, a fundamental right would apply to any context without any change in its force or relevance.

  That is not to say questions of culture or women’s empowerment are any less relevant. However one must be clear not to confuse one with the other. There might be many definitions of culture or of the role of women in society and each just as valid as the next. However there can be no negotiation on the matter of one’s fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, for any concession in this regard would mean a breakdown of the very basis of our civil and public spheres of existence. 

  It was quite disturbing then to see how most new reports and analysis of the incident spoke about matters of Indian culture and fundamental rights in the same sentence. To quote Arvind Narrain of the Alternate Law Forum in an article published in the Indian Express: “Indirectly, the Amnesia pub incident challenges the legacy of the women’s movement in India, which has fought for women’s right to autonomy of decision making.” In the same article he says: “When women choose to go a pub, they challenge a patriarchal heritage which says that public spaces are by definition male, and when women wear noodle straps and tight jeans they are saying that their body is nobody’s business but their own, a flat contradiction of the conservative code.”[2]

  Nowhere in the article does he make a definitive argument against the perpetrators on the basis of personal liberties and civil rights except to refer to it in passing. One might have expected differently of someone so closely associated with a law think-tank. The rest of the article is largely in defence of women’s right to express themselves vis-a-vis attire and behaviour. One gets the uneasy feeling that he goes too far to defend feminist identities. When a group of girls dress up in the latest fashion and go to a pub to party, it is usually with the intention of enjoying themselves rather than trying to make a statement that “their body is no nobody’s business but their own.” What if they weren’t saying that? What if they went out with the explicit intention of snubbing cultural sentiments to no greater end? Does that make their right to personal liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution any less legitimate?

  To some, separating out issues of women’s rights and the right to one’s own definition of culture from the issue of personal liberties might seem an exercise in triviality. Quite the contrary, this is of utmost importance to the case in question. To illustrate, it is like debating the rules of the game and debating the skills of the players. The latter is a matter of personal opinion, the former a defining feature of the game itself. If a team plays badly it is a matter of shame for the supporting side, if it breaks the rules it incurs a penalty. 

  The fact that a large section of the polity and civil society see it fit for women to confine themselves to domestic roles is a matter of shame but when that section takes it into their hands to enforce those beliefs it is a breach of law. True, the two are not mutually exclusive and it is the prevailing beliefs of the majority that gets written into law. But law, once written, stands on its own merit until further debate decides it must be changed. 

  What Went Wrong in Mangalore?

  To fully appreciate the importance of the need to separate out issues one must go into a little history of non-tolerance in the picturesque town of Mangalore.. Non-tolerance, particularly in its ugly religious form is not new to Mangalore. In recent years it has been spurred by growing cadre of the religious right.. The presence of a BJP government at the helm in Bangalore (the first to install a BJP CM in a South Indian state), has emboldened right wing groups many of whom view this as an opportunity to get back for seeming ill-treatment under previous Congress governments. “On a single telephone call from Muslim ministers, people accused of murder were released in the past,” alleges a Sangh member[3].

  In September 2008, 18 churches were attacked allegedly by Bajrang Dal cadre[4]. Clashes between Hindu and Muslim communities keep erupting sporadically and moral policing in general has been on the rise. 

  Yet, Mangalore remains very cosmopolitan owing in good measure to its high NRI population levels. All three communities, namely Hindus, Muslims and Christians each constitute a sizeable share of the population. Median incomes are of the populace are generally amongst the highest in Karnataka and it is interesting that there is near total absence of permanent slums in the city (although in recent times their number has been growing)[5]. The uniqueness of the city stems from the coexistence of modernity and tradition, visually exemplified in the side-by-side space shared by high rises and early twentieth and late nineteenth century bungalows. Traditional Udipi restaurants are as popular Pizza Hut and Subway. Very recently the city boasted of its first multiplex-cum-shopping centre. Big business too has found a home here from Infosys to the 21,000 crore ONGC refinery, bringing with it workers from all over India.

  This influx of the outside world into the Mangalore social space in recent times has lead to a growing assertion of modern and post-modern identities. The Yakshagana is still a popular source of entertainment but so are the growing number of pubs and discotheques. Most of the schools and colleges in the city still remain all-boys or all-girls (most of them run by the Catholic Church) but hang-outs for mixed groups are increasing. Most of the older theatres have lost out to the newer ones screening the latest Hollywood movies.

  The social space is in a heightened state of flux and tensions are, understandably high. Many of the older generation see the infiltration of ‘western’ culture with its accompanying themes of equality of the sexes, youth liberation and a general questioning of inconvenient social mores as threatening to rip apart the established social fabric. A childhood friend of my father who still lives in Mangalore and has a son about my age recently remarked how when he was growing up, a man only purchased alcohol on his own money whereas today children who were still in high school had taken to drinking because of the easy availability of money and access bars and pubs. He went on to lament how ‘this whole boyfriend-girlfriend business’ had made him feel uncomfortable to allow his daughter too much free time outside the house. This, in spite of him being well-educated and a highly affluent hotelier in the city.

  These sentiments of resentment have quickly been seized upon by the political right to strengthen their influence in the city. Pramod Mutalik and his horde of Ram Sainiks, who were literally unknown till the pub incident, are today a household name. The amount of political mileage that the Ram Sena has been able to extract out of the incident, thanks in no small amount to the way it was reported by the media, is simply phenomenal. It was a calculated move on the part of the Ram Sena, who had informed local news agencies about the impending attack.

  The Sri Ram Sena has largely remained a fringe organization shunned even by the RSS and the rest of the Sangh Parivar. Their attempts at gaining an electoral victory in Karnataka have failed miserably as have their forays into neighbouring Andhra Pradesh[6]. Today however, many conservative middle class families exhibit a not-too-subtle admiration for the Sena, who for them has become a guardian of Hindu culture. The horrifying personal rights and liberties violations of the Sena are quickly brushed under the carpet. One is tempted to ask whether these individuals would be equally approving if some organization, more hardliner than the Sena, violated their personal freedoms in the name of [perhaps a more Manu-esque] Hindu culture.

  But the roots of the current conflict run a lot more deeper. The initiation of land reforms by the Congress government in 1974 quickly isolated the powerful land-holding Bunt community in Mangalore. Then during the Emergency, differences were further entrenched as a result of Congress politics, which sought to divide the polity along caste lines by propping up backward caste communities and minorities. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 was the final straw.

  Another source of conflict is the growing levels inequality in the closely knit community. Although it might seem like pop sociology at its best, it is impossible to dismiss the resentment it creates especially among youth of the same age. From there, it is a rather simple matter of connecting wealthy members of the community with decadent lifestyles which can then be targeted on the pretext of ‘defending Indian culture’.  Ironically, at higher levels the perpetrators are themselves extremely well-to-do individuals who nevertheless exploit the sentiments of the lower income youth.

  Thus we see that the causes for conflict in Mangalore society are myriad and often run much below the surface of their manifestations in everyday life. To simply attribute the conflict to one set of individuals or one set of beliefs or a section of the polity is to act with unpardonable naiveté. By indiscriminately lambasting Mutalik and his honchos and by proclaiming the obvious superiority of a liberal social paradigm, civil society might have lost its most important battle yet.

  The key problematic lies in the failure to separate the issue of personal rights violations from the issue of what constitutes ‘[pub] culture’ in the Mangalore pub incident. As a result a potentially powerful condemnation the former has been reduced to a debate on the latter. This has dangerous implications. To base the personal safety and security of citizens on the question of what constitutes ‘Indian culture’ is bound to be an uneasy security.

  Worse, it is playing right into the hands of the Sena. Notice how Mutalik, in an interview, did exactly the same thing. He said, and I quote:

  "The way has been wrong. I apologise for this. The way should not be like that. But it is our right to save our mothers and daughters. Pub-culture is not our culture...Media should highlight and show the aim behind our act to the society,"[7]

  Thus, a matter of ‘Constitution’ is diluted into a matter of ‘culture’. 

  What then are the appropriate fora for a discussion on culture? Are such discussions relevant at all? Here I turn to Sen for a little illumination and critically examine his writings on the subject.

  Debating Culture

  Debating the idea of ‘culture’ and ‘identity’, when carried out in appropriate fora is as important as any discourse. The simple reason for this is that in a democracy, it is the dominant position in public discourse that gets written into law. Law directs the way we live. Public reasoning empowers the citizens to influence public choice.[8] 

  Most importantly when there is an atmosphere conducive to fair and free discussion, social change, as is inevitable, will take place in an inclusive manner that respects everyone’s voice so that those sections of society that might stand to lose do not feel threatened. Change is inevitable – values change, customs and traditions change, religions change and so on. Change is inevitable. Yet how we allow this change to take place is largely dependent on the institutions we put in place, particularly the institution of public discourse. 

  Sen’s Argumentative Indian makes much of the importance of debate – free and fair – for a just and stable society. Moreover public discussion must be guided by reason – a leitmotif he borrows from John Rawls. However, the problem with such and other rational choice theories is that they overestimate the value that citizens might place on reason, even in advanced societies. 

  To take the case of Mangalore once again, many conservative agendas are bellied by their surface manifestations of aiming to preserve Indian culture. Often these are merely facades for unseen agendas such as controlling political power and maintaining the status quo in class relations. In such cases, it does not matter if ones wins the ‘culture’ war, because culture is merely a facade for deeper agendas.

  In such cases debate and discussion will only be fruitful if it is accompanied by simultaneous efforts to educate the citizenry about their rights. Inequalities by way of differences of class, caste religion, race etc must be counterbalanced through constitutional mechanisms that gives equal voice to all. 

  Most of the world’s religions, particularly the Semitic ones, stress the virtue of [blind] belief over reason. For example in the Gospels, Thomas who refused to believe in Christ’s resurrection until he actually saw the Christ was castigated for being a doubter. Modern day religious arguments for placing belief over reason (here I am referring to Christianity) include the argument that ‘God’s ways are not man’s ways’ and so he should not question religion or ‘God works in mysterious ways’ so that one need not always believe solely on the basis of proof and reason.

  Many arguments for preserving culture begin and end with “this is how we have been living for generations and hence there is no need to change it”. Such arguments are very difficult to engage with and most often end up being exercises in futility. 

  This brings us to a very important question: does the lack of all-round acceptance of reason as the guiding force behind public discourse preclude the relevance/legitimacy of such discourse?

  My answer to this is “No!” Dialogue in itself is a cornerstone of a democracy regardless of whether or not some higher outcome is achieved. Coming back to Mangalore, the dismissive attitude of civil society to Conservative concerns exemplified by the Pink Chaddi Campaign, cannot but lead to an isolation of the Conservatives, something that could have disastrous consequences in the long run. Many of those who see themselves as forward, liberal intellectuals are quick to dismiss the claims of tradition as irrational and not meriting engagement with.

  This, perhaps, is also a criticism that one might make against Amartya Sen. For Sen, argumentation must be guided by Reason and lead to a synthesis of different views into a new understanding mutually acceptable by all. Sen fails to stress the importance of argument for argument’s sake. Yet Indian society is filled with argumentation and dialogue between diverse sections of the society on a variety of often inane topics that might not lead to any greater outcome, but serves to keep people together and, more importantly, keep the lines of communication open.

  Conclusion

  Dialogue, debate, discussion, argumentation et al are the cornerstones of a democracy.. Yet, in a dialogue one must be careful how one deals with matters that are constitutional to our shared social existence – the ‘rules of the game’ – and matters that are of a less fundamental nature. 

  Also, argumentation involving all sections of society is desirable regardless of whether such argumentation is guided by Reason, and regardless of the outcomes of such argumentation.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  [1] Comment made by women and child development minister Renuka Chowdhury. Reported in the TOI, 21st February, 2009

  [2] “Taliban in Saffron”, Indian Express, February 7, 2009.

  [3] Indian Express, February 3, 2009.

  [4] ANI, September 25, 2008.

  [5] The Hindu, Karnataka ed., January 21, 2006

  [6] K.R. Sudhakar Rao, The Hoot, ‘Making a Mutalik out of a Mole Hill’, February 17th, 2009

  [7] Zeenews Bureau, January 27, 2009.

  [8] The Argumentative Indian, pp 14



  On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 7:25 PM, bipin <aliens at dataone.in> wrote:

    Dear All,



    Regarding Manglore pub attack, don't you think we are giving too much hype and that way giving un-necessary publicity to irrelevant organization like ram sena? By this way, we are giving too much publicity and that is what they want. Such incident are always condemnable, but such incident does happens (may be some other way and not particular pub attack) in many parts of India as routine, but since there is no organizations are involved in it (particularly Hindu organization) doesn't come in the lime light. By boycotting the things from Karnataka is not the solution. This way you are increasing unemployment in this economical crisis. Please note that Karnataka govt. is elected democratically with about 45% vote share and you are not respecting verdict by this way.



    As a Banglorian spirit, it is surprising that you get disturbed with such an incidence of pub attack and unnecessary wasting your prestigious time in discussing it. Best way to tackle such incidence is just to ignore it and I am sure you will not find any repetition of it. By ignoring there moral will get down. No doubt, according to law the culprit must be punished and this case is going on that way. But, you know how slow court cases going on in India.



    Since so many days I have been noticing the heavy discussion going on for this, so I gave my opinion. By the way I am not belonging to any political party.



    thanks

    Bipin Trivedi
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