[Reader-list] NO CAVILING AT GUJARAT'S HARD FACTS

[Britta Ohm]

Oh, thanks, Rajen, for your appreciating 'a German' to visit camps in  
Gujarat, which seems to suggest that you would not expect anything but  
a guided excursion to the Taj Mahal (or rather Akshardham, I suppose),  
given that you seem to know that I landed at New Delhi (which I mostly  
don't, but 'hard facts' can, as we know, become anything that's stated  
in a way which does not allow contradiction, let alone disproof). I'm  
not that much of an exception, let me tell you. And I do not suffer  
from selective amnesia either but am very aware of the Kashmiri Pandit  
camps. I find it odd, though, that they only seem to come into play  
when other atrocities and displacements of minorities are being  
mentioned, they do not seem to be of any real concern to anybody,  
nobody "feels" for them, isn't that strange? And how come that not  
even the BJP-government ventured into compensation for them? The  
expulsion of the Kashmiri Pandits was terrible but it's probably even  
more terrible that they became a useful tool for politics. There seems  
to be a big interest that the Kashmiri camps are "there" (always),  
which corresponds with the interest that the Muslim camps are not  
"there" (at all). Or what have you done, if I may ask, to highlight  
the pandits plight, to campaign for solutions or to help?
I'm not going to venture into your abstruse suggestion that amongst  
the religious minorities you would not find extreme subdivisions,  
Christians as much as Muslims in India follow variations of the caste  
system, there are countless different sects and spiritual practises  
(the Bohras, for instance, only exist in Western Gujarat and would  
certainly not be seen at friday prayers in a Sunni mosque) as much as  
syncretic traditions (which you seem to find treacheous), many of  
whom, regretfully, have been severly endangered or made extinct in  
Gujarat as much as in Kashmir (under very different political  
conditions) and in many other places, and that NGOs do not wear the  
halo of accountability and responsibility is not exactly breaking  
news. But I also do not want to even imagine some situations - such as  
the aftermath of the Gujarat pogrom - without them. The main point  
here, though, was whether the camps exist at all or not, and you said  
it yourself. I'm totally cool now, thanks.


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Dr. Britta Ohm

Institute of Social Anthropology
University of Bern
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3012 Bern
Switzerland
+41-(0)31-631 8995 (main office)
+41-(0)31-631 8997 (direct line)
britta.ohm at anthro.unibe.ch


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ohm at zedat.fu-berlin.de