[Reader-list] On Demography, Gender and Emancipation

[gowhar fazli]

On Demography, Gender and Emancipation

By Gowhar Fazili

The controversial PR (Disqualification) Bill, with all its negative fallouts like fragmentation of politics along regional, religious and gender lines, has had one positive repercussion: it has opened up a broader debate around the issues of gender and possibly other cleavages within our society. This debate is especially important for the ongoing movement which aims for the emancipation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Though the primary focus of ‘Azadi’ at the moment is around the notion of right to self-determination, this question cannot be looked at without understanding the constituents of the political community in Jammu and Kashmir on whose behalf it is demanded. It is also pertinent that the movement, in the process of achieving its goal, is concerned about the interests of all its constituents. The issue of domicile and the concern about changes in demography is closely connected with the idea of political autonomy and
 self-determination—the fear that the people of Jammu and Kashmir may be swamped by the mainland settlers.

The fear of being rendered a minority within our own state is not baseless. North Eastern states, especially Assam, has faced serious and bloody conflict around demographic changes, be these due to mainland Baniya, Bengali, Bihari and Punjabi business community displacing local businessmen, or the persistent problem of Bangladeshi/Bengali Muslim immigration. In this regard, we must acknowledge that Jammu and Kashmir has benefitted due to the favourable laws protecting the state from outsiders moving in permanently. Not surprisingly, the people of Jammu and Kashmir would not want to dilute this safeguard.

Even the Indian state is concerned about immigration. Intriguingly though, despite its proclaimed secular credentials, it treats immigration from Muslim-majority Bangladesh differently than from the Hindu-majority Nepal, irrespective of the likely Maoist connection, which is otherwise seen as a threat to the nation. Conversely, in Nepal, there has been a history of repeated backlashes against Indian immigrants.

The worst scenario is that of Palestine, which has faced the issue of land-grabbing and demographic change since the creation of Israel after the World War II. For all its ‘modernity’, Israel maintains discriminatory racist practices differentiating between Arab natives and Jewish settlers. As a result, the Arabs have progressively lost land and the Palestinian refugees, their right of return, even while the Jewish settlers from everywhere around the world have gained ‘citizenship’ and ‘land rights’ with ease. This has been the case even within the internationally recognised occupied territories. (Recently on the March 11, the American allies had to face embarrassment as the Israelis announced fresh illegal settlements in the West Bank, while they were trying to broker a peace deal with the Palestinians) 

What makes such discrimination among apparently ‘civilised’ people possible? The Israeli sense of victimhood is based on the Jewish holocaust experience in Europe. This makes them excessively sensitive about their own interests while being oblivious of those of others who may be equally vulnerable. Jewish justification for wiping out Palestinians in their own homeland is premised on the understanding that Palestinians are basically Arabs and Muslims who can get absorbed anywhere else in the Muslim world, while Jews, having been a persecuted everywhere in the World, require an exclusive state of their own where their future is safeguarded. While their sense of persecution may be genuine, this illustrates how persecuted communities can become unjust and perpretrate the very atrocities they have suffered onto other people, a danger of which Kashmiris, in the interest of justice and the moral basis of their struggle, must never lose sight.

In the same vein, Malaysia has had a problem with Chinese immigration and is concerned about how the immigrant population, which is also exceedingly enterprising, affects its Malay and Muslim culture, politics and economy. Though this remains a source of tension, it has not resulted in serious or violent conflict as yet.

Though the concern around demographic change is legitimate, the manner in which we choose to address it should not be discriminatory along the lines of gender, race or religion. This is not only necessary to uphold democratic values but also to retain the moral basis of our cause. It also makes pragmatic and political sense not to lose enthusiasm and support for the cause among various constituencies, including women. Moreover, not engaging with the issues of justice reinforces the stereotype that Kashmiris are conservative and patriarchal in their outlook and, by association, their cause. This kind of stereotyping is a known colonial practices through which people are demonised and then denied legitimacy and rights. Further, being involved in an emancipatory struggle, we must not leave the discourses around justice issues unaddressed, to be then taken over and exploited by politically conservative rightwing groups like the BJP and JMM.

If the change in demography is so significant as to require a fresh legislation, it would need to be established through statistics and not conjecture, bias or political expediency. Finally, any solution we arrive at must ensure that women are treated on par with men even as there is, and ought to be, no discrimination on the basis of race, region or religion. 

In my view, justice demands that either both men and women who marry outside should forgo their status as state subjects or both should be able to retain it, or alternatively, the children of both male and female state-subjects who marry outside should be entitled for domicile status or neither should. The privileging of the male subject is inadmissible and unjust.