Gandhi, the spiritual leader of the independence movement, Nehru, the first prime minister and institution builder, and Tagore, the public intellectual and poet who authored India's national anthem, established pluralism, rule of law, and secularism in India. This legacy has been subject to domestic challenges like Indira Gandhi's state of emergency, which promoted rule by decree from 1975-77, and persistent religious violence amidst the rise of the BJP, a political party with a platform that advocates India as an exclusively Hindu state.
In 2002, few noticed or cared about the brutality of the religious violence against Muslims in Gujarat. Indian leaders at the national, state, and local levels were implicated in that genocide. Today the world's focus should not be solely on the loss of life to terrorism in Mumbai. The violence against Christians in the months preceding the Mumbai attacks occurred after the death of a Hindu fundamentalist leader, Swami Saraswati. These atrocities, reported as the worst against observers of Christianity since the Partition in 1947, also suggest complicity at present by elected leaders. Such human rights abuses are a direct threat to the pluralist legacy of the founders who believed that India has to be faithful to a secular tradition in which the rule of law is respected.
Terrorist attacks create persistently tense relations between India and Pakistan, which have fought several wars since independence over Kashmir. Of ethical concern presently are the attempts to depict as banal the religious violence, which is India's greatest domestic challenge. There is genuine concern that the BJP aims to politicize the Mumbai terrorist attacks in the upcoming spring 2009 elections in order to portray the ruling Congress party as unable to protect India's citizenry or international tourists. This is a dangerous trend that angers Indian citizens who blame the leadership at national, state, and local levels for its collective failure to protect the populace from criminal attacks by militants against civilians.
The burden of proof is on each state in India's federal system to demonstrate its competence and credibility in the face of non-traditional security threats by non-state actors. Mumbai is the latest demonstration of the purposive intentions of criminals whose goal is to destabilize legitimately elected governments. In the face of such atrocities, which must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, the call to all India's peoples, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians alike, is to stand united in the pluralist and secular traditions of the country's founders.
The Obama Administration has an opportunity to continue developing a strategic relationship with India. The timing of the context in South Asia is very sensitive. The asymmetry in India's relations with Pakistan is exacerbated by intensified US air strikes in the tribal areas. More constructive ways must be identified to address American security concerns. As India's elections approach, New Delhi is unlikely to accept US pressure for external mediation in Kashmir, which the elites insist must remain part of an India founded in the secular tradition.
The European Union (EU) is looking ahead to a multi-polar world with competing Asian power centers. As India and China evolve as the Asian engines of globalization, the EU privileges an economic, not an internal security, engagement with the subcontinent. Any imbalance in EU-India relations is likely to prove frustrating in time. India's aspirations emphasize global competition in tandem with strategic autonomy in military questions.
A strategic EU-India relationship that addresses security concerns while respecting the founders' legacy post-Mumbai is possible. Will evolving strategic relations between the EU and India help or hinder an increased profile for the Union's presence, with a focus on civilian operations, in Afghanistan? Since 1947 India has confronted tremendous challenges in state-building through the consolidation of political institutions during an era of rapid modernization. European initiatives within NATO to focus on the political and institutional dimensions of capacity-building in Afghanistan should not be deterred by Indo-Pakistani rivalries dating back to independence.
Colette Mazzucelli, MALD, EdM Cand., PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, New York.
Related Materials from the Atlantic Community:
- Parag Khanna: Obama Needs the Unusual Suspects to Pacify South Central-Asia
- Yasser Abumuailek: NATO to Lead the War on Terror
- Askarbek Erkinovich Mambetaliev: Religious Repression and Antiwesternism in Kyrgyzstan
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March 23, 2009
Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)
I understand that the Gujarat riots were themselves triggered by the burning of a train car occupied by members of a Hindu sect by a supposedly Muslim mob. The sect apparently has been agitating for a mosque to be torn down and a Hindu temple erected on the site
since the birth of secular India in 1946, but no government had taken sides until the BJP was elected in Gujarat.
The Hindu sect's rationale is that a pre-existing Hindu temple had been destroyed during the 17th century by the Mughal overlords who had conquered their region of India. This of course has been a familiar feature of Muslim conquerors through the ages, and not confined to Muslims of course. Christians have consecrated pagan temples and mosques and used them as Christian churches.
If that is a fair summary of the situation, it is a difficult knot to cut. It seems two communities have rights in the matter. While I'm certain that Congress would be happy to build an alternate mosque or temple at another location, it is not clear from a distance which group should have to accept the alternate site. I suspect that natural justice might demand that the nature of the community be taken into account - if the mosque/temple is located in a largely Hindu neighborhood then the temple should be the choice. Conversely if it is a predominantly Muslim neighborhood a mosque might be the natural choice.