In recent years India has seen a lot of communal violence , much of which has come from the B.J.P. , a Hindo nationalist party , now in Government , and other similar organisations .
How have the forces of Hindo nationalism and religious bigotry achieved such prominence ? also , why do you think this is happening now ? What is giving the B.J.P. such mass support?
Well you have to look at the population of India which is 1 billion or more out of which 80% of the people are Hindos and you can imagine that even if a small section of this 80% turn communal or turn hostile towards minorities you have a very dangerous situation because 80% of 1 billion is 800 million that's a huge number of people and over the years various governments have mis-managed the economy , they have mis-managed the political situation and as a result the status of the common person in India has become very poor , unemployment is high , people don't have jobs , day to day life is becoming more difficult , people are becoming disillusioned with the system as such , and it's easy y'know communal hatred , hatred towards minorities is always a very easy escape out that's one reason why the message of the Hindo nationalists has found a very receptive audience .
To what extent is this so-called "mob violence" against Muslims, Christians and Sikhs , orchestrated by the B.J.P. and to what extent are the police and the security forces complict with it?
They work hand in hand , for example , the B.J.P. and it's umbrella organisations provoke violence mobs belonging to these groups go out in the streets and attack minorities , attack people their property their homes and the police are very sympaththetic to the message of the B.J.P. and its people and therefore rather than helping to prevent this violence they just stand by or in worst situations they have even they have even participated in this violence.
Has there been a history of insititutionalised discrimination against religious minorities in India?
It's very difficult to answer this question because the Indian constitution , at least on paper , promises equality . All Indian institutions - the police , the civil service are supposed to by law treat everybody equally, institutionalised discrimination if you mean like apartheid in South Africa or certain discrimantory laws in the United States I can't think of any situation like that in India but this is only in theory , in practise of course minorities do face a lot of discrimnation and prejudice
How integrated or seperated are the various religious communities, if , for instance , I went to Bombay or Calcutta would I find Muslim ghettos?
There are of course parts of the country which are predominatly one religion , for example, Punjab, that has a majority of Sikhs, if you go to Kashmir which is a Muslim state, in parts of Uttar Pradesh you have large concentrations of the Muslim community and even in the city of Bombay for example there are localities where there is a concentration of the Muslim community or the Christian and so on
Are there mixed marriages ? Do people socialise together ? Work together?
People do socialise but to a very small extent as regards mixed marriages they do take place but again very small numbers and at workplace in many places you do find people working together of all religions but in the rural areas where y'know the traditional communities live there is still a lot of seperation.
Do you think that religious violence in India is the legacy of a 'divide and rule' policy of British colonialism?
Well one can always find a connection between what the British did because one of their tactics to rule India was to divide the Indians on religious grounds but it's been about 50 years now and how long can you blame the British for this .
As well as the persecution of minorities a religious element can also be seen in the recent seperatist armed campaign in the Punjab and in the ongoing guerrilla uprising in Kashmir, what are the root causes of these conflicts?
Well the root causes are , for example , in Kashmir , Kashmir was never part of India and the people of Kashmir have always wanted to become independant and the Indian government has refused to recognise this and it's policy has always been to not to recognise this situation and to try to keep Kashmir as part of India but even this policy was not implemented in a way it could have been , for example , today there is Indian troops in Kashmir about 300 or 400 thousand and that's the only reason why Kashmir remains part of India and these troops have been attacking the people , commiting gross violations of human rights and as a result more and more Kashmiris are turning against India.
And in Punjab also they had a very genuine greviance against the Indian government since indepedance and the Indian government could have easily negiotiated in good faith with the Sikhs and resolved the situation but again they screwed up.
As well as the Sikh and Muslim based rebel armies there are also Marxist/Maoist ones.
Tell us a little about them , and also the repressive response of the state.
The Maoist groups started as a result of repression by the state. The landless peasants organised to gain control over land which belonged to them by law or they tried to unionise to gain fair wages , fair treatment at workplace and the response from the landlords , the bureaucrats and the police was severe repression . The police and army was used to shoot at demonstrators , peaceful meetings were banned and so the response of the peasants was to form groups which used violence basically and in many ways nobody likes violence but if you deny the people their basic rights to protest and organise peacefully they don't have a choice but to use volence sometimes.
Speaking of Kashmir brings us to the long running conflict between India and Pakistan ,which has assumed alarming proportions in the last few years with a nuclear arms race and a proxy war in Kashmir, basically what's it all about ? Is there any particular strategic or economic interest in Kashmir ?
Well I think Kashmir does not have any resources, any valuble natural resources like mines or oil that India or Pakistan want to keep. There are/were several seperatist movements in India in recent times which have wanted independance from India so I think the Indian government does not want to set a precedence by giving independance to Kashmir because it will encourage other regions to do the same . The second reason is that it is a matter of prestige, no Indian government will survive if it is seen as surrendering Kashmir and on the Pakistani side also a similar motivation the prestige issue, no Pakistani goverment can survie if it is seen as giving up on Kasmir and I think the Pakistanis remember that in 1971 India was instrumental in dividing that country, Pakistan used to be East Pakistan and West Pakistan and there was a war between India and Pakistan and as a result East Pakistan - Bangladesh became independant and India was instrumental in this so I think this is one way of getting back at India.
So far what we've been talking about isn't really unique to India , change the names and you could almost be talking about somewere else , the B.J.P. for instance seem to be cut from the same stone as the Orange Order or the B.N.P. or the Front Nationale , but what is pretty much unique to India is the caste system , firstly could just outline exactly what the caste system is?
Well orgininally several thousand years ago it started out as economic classification of the society in four groups.
At the top , the Brahmins , who were supposed to be the pundits , the educated people, then the proffesional class , the warriors , and then the lowermost who were supposed to be people without any rights - the workers - the illiterate people and over several centuries this classification became rigid so people from one group could not move down or up and people at the lowermost rung of the ladder suffer severe discrimination and oppression , they are the Dalits or the so-called untouchables and in Indian society today they are widely discriminated upon and subject to oppression.
What happens to people at the bottom of the Caste pyrimad could you tell us a little about that ? and the differences between the situation of Dalits in the villages and in the cities.
In the villages people know each other, families live in close proximity and they have lived there for several decades so y'know your neighbours so it is very difficult for a Dalit family to disguise or hide the fact that they are Dalits and in the villages it's very common to find that the Dalit families are isolated, that their homes are found at a corner far away from the village . The Dalits are not allowed to use the wells the same as the other villagers use, they are not allowed to go to the temples or other places of worship that others use, they are not allowed to use other facilites, the local tea shop may not even serve them or they may be asked to sit separatly and so on and so forth.
They face various discrimination on a day to day basis.
In the city it's more integrated because people don't have time to find out who you're co-passenger on the bus is , the situation in the cities is more mixed there have been examples of dicrimination but at the same time there is more integration
What resistance to caste is there from Dalits and is there a history of such resistance or is this a fairly recent phenomenon?
There is a history of resistnace from the Dalits but what we are seeing today is a very powerful , strong and militant response from the Dalit community they have decided that enough is enough and they will not tolerate any more oppression of this kind . The Dalit community has united with minorities such as the Muslims, the Tribals , and the Christian community and they have fought elections and several states in India have seen Chief Ministers from the Dalit community and in the national parliament also the Dalit parties have done fairly well .This is very impressive and I think this is a very optimistic situation .
Where does the work of your own organisation , the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties , fit into this?
The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties was formed just after the period of emergency in 1981. The emergency was two years when Indira Ghandi suspended civil liberties , she had arrested all opposition leaders and some newspaper people. In respone to this the P.U.C.L. was formed to fight for human rights of all Indians and as such it also fights for Dalit rights . Whenever there are reports of police atrocities any where in the country they send investigating teams to find out , to get facts , at times our lawyers have gone to court to prosecute police officers or to demand official inquiries .
What sort of effects are sanctions having on Iraqi society?
The effects of sanctions on Iraq are well documented by several international proffesional agencies; there is no food for people to eat , there is no medicine , people don't have access to clean water , people don't have fire in their homes , people are losing their jobs because there is no industries , the infrastructure has been destroyed and as a result of this for the last ten years more than a million and a half people have died , directly as a result of the sanctions , there was a UNICIEF report recently which said that about 200 - 300 children below the age of five die every day in that country .
What motivations are behind the sanctions?
If you listen to Bill Clinton or Tony Blair they will tell you it's about democracy , they will say that Saddam Hussein is a very dangerous man , that they must get rid of biological and chemical weapons from Iraq , but Iraq has already been disarmed even Scott Ritter who was a U.N. inspector working for U.N.S.C.O.M. has publicaly and several times stated that disarmament has taken place in Iraq so one has to look behind the politics to why Britian and the United States maintain these sanctions . I think it is all about oil and who controls the profits from the oil sales if you look at the Iraqi oil industry it has been nationalised so the profits go to the Iraqi government and not to corporations like Mobil , Shell and Exxon I think that's behind the sanctions the United States wants a regime change in Iraq to install a dictator they can control , who they can dominate . That's what they want .
What effect are the sanctions having on the Iraqi regime?
The sanctions have had absolutly no effect on Saddam Hussein and his regime . If anything the sanctions have strengthened him because in times of emergency people rather than hate the government rally around and support the government because they are under attack and today the people of Iraq are more concerned with staying alive than with changing the regime .
But sanctions are not the only aggression faced by the people of Iraq.
Yes , after the war the United States , Britian and France unilaterally imposed no fly zones on two areas in the north and south of Iraq , which cover most of the country and the idea is that these are no fly zones which means that Iraqi planes cannot enter this territory and since 1996 the French have refused to participate in these no fly zones which means that only the U.S. and U.K. are doing this . In the last two years the Iraqis have challenged these no fly zones and they have said they will not except U.S. control of these no fly zones and as a result the U.S. has been bombing those regions almost everyday . On a weekly basis about three or four civilians die. These no fly zones are actually illegal because the international community - the U.N. or the U.N. Security Council has not sanctioned these no fly zones..
What work have you been doing around this issue?
In San Fransico I was involved in activist groups which fight against U.S. Imperialism be it in the bombing of Yugoslavia or be it in the sanctions against Iraq and also other issues within the United States such as the death penalty and the case of Mumia Abu Jamal and the fight for Afirmative Action.
When Yugoslavia was being bombed we had had huge protests . On each day of the bombing we had two hundred to three hundred demonstrators on the streets of San Francisco protesting against the bombing plus a couple of times we organised huge public meetings which were attended by over 20,000 people the focus was on U.S. bombing in Yugoslavia but also on U..S. actions in Iraq and other places.
About three months ago we formed a group in Dublin - it's called Campaign To End the Iraq Sanctions we have been conducting various activities : we hand out leaflets at Bank of Ireland , College Green 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and we organise public meetings for example in July Denis Halliday ( former U.N. official who resigned in protest over the sanctions ) will be speaking in Dublin . The response from Irish people has been very encouraging , I find that people are curious to find out what is going on in Iraq and how they can help , several people have came back to me and said that they wrote to their T.D.s ( Members of Parliament ) and so on. So that is very encouraging .