New Straits Times, Friday, 28 July 2006

Zainah Anwar
Lessons from India on peace and violence

BETWEEN 1950 and 1995, 1,600 Hindu-Muslim riots were reported in India. Some 7,500 people were killed. Only four per cent of the deaths took place in rural India, even though more than 65 per cent of the population lived there.

Ninety-six per cent of the deaths took place in urban areas. And just eight cities representing 18 per cent of India’s urban population accounted for nearly 46 per cent of the deaths in Hindu-Muslim violence. In other words, 82 per cent of India’s urban population has not been as riot prone. Why?

In his seminal work, "Ethnic Conflict and Civil Life: Hindus and Muslims in India", Ashutosh Varshney, an Indian political scientist at Michigan University, offered this compelling thesis: The greater the patterns of inter-communal civic engagement in a city, the lower the likelihood of violent conflict and riots. In 10 years of intensive research where he examined three pairs of Indian cities, one riot prone and the other not, he concluded that pre-existing local networks of civic engagement between Hindus and Muslims stand out as the single most important explanation for the difference between peace and violence. Trust built on inter-ethnic social and civic ties, not intra-ethnic networks, is critical for peace.

He found the presence of inter-ethnic associations decisive in preventing violence because they build bridges and manage tensions in times of conflict. While he found everyday engagement between ethnic groups (like eating together or playing together) crucial, and sturdy enough in village settings, it is not as resilient as more formal and organised inter-ethnic associations — especially when confronted with attempts by politicians to polarise citizens along ethnic lines in urban settings.

There are lessons here for us in Malaysia as we confront ethno-religious contestations over rights, identity, culture and resources.

Varshney underlines the difference between ethnic conflict and ethnic violence. Conflict is inevitable in an ethnically plural society like Malaysia, where the different ethnic groups are free to organise to assert competing demands from the state. They cannot be suppressed, but must be resolved.

The rub is how to prevent ethnic conflict from turning into ethnic violence. Varshney’s work provides compelling arguments for the type of civil society that better serves good governance and peace.

In political theory, organisations that bring people voluntarily together in the public sphere between the family and the state, are said to serve as a kind of "social capital". It contributes to the development of a public culture of citizenship and inclusive participation. Therefore, there is always the assumption that civil society is good for democracy.

Yes, but the Ku Klux Klan in the United States or the Hindu or Muslim militant groups in India are anything but civil in their behaviour. As the American anthropologist Robert Hefner noted, Christian and Muslim extremists active in religious violence in eastern Indonesia in 1999-2001 were civil society groups. But they were also capable of promoting racism, chauvinism and violence.

Thus, the "social capital" from such intra-ethnic civic associations only builds trust and peace within their own single ethnic or religious group. Varshney’s research shows that such communal and ethnic-based organisations are not only often incapable of preventing Hindu-Muslim riots, but are also linked with the escalation of communal violence. What matters for ethnic violence is not whether ethnic life or social capital exists, but whether social and civic ties cut across ethnic groups, Varshney asserts.

He makes two other findings that are also significant for Malaysia. First, the role of politicians. Those who seek to polarise Hindus and Muslims for electoral advantage can tear at the fabric of everyday engagement through criminals and gangs, he finds. Without the involvement of organised gangs, large-scale rioting and killings are unlikely, and without the protection afforded by politicians, such criminals would be prosecuted under the law.

In peaceful cities, where non-governmental organisations, trade unions, businesses, teachers, lawyers, doctors and some cadre-based political parties are communally integrated, Varshney finds a synergy emerges between civic organisations and local arms of government. This leads to better monitoring and preventive action as these relationships nip rumours, small clashes and tensions in the bud. In the end, polarising politicians either do not succeed or eventually give up trying to provoke and engineer communal violence.

Second is the role of the Press. In violent cities, instead of investigating rumours, often strategically planted and spread, the Press simply printed them with abandon, he said. What was also not a surprising finding was the journalistic connections — Muslim thugs with the Urdu Press and Hindu thugs with the Hindi Press.

In studying peaceful Calicut and violent Aligarh over the Babari mosque agitation, he found Aligarh’s local newspapers printing inflammatory falsehoods, while Calicut’s newspapers neutralised rumours after investigating and finding them unfounded.

He does not, however, believe that the Press should restrain itself from reporting truthfully the ground realities. The extent of Hindu nationalist brutality would not have been known if not for India’s free national Press. It was the national Press, he said, that stood up to shame the vacillating BJP central Government and the Gujarat Government, whose chief minister, an ideologue of the Hindu right wing, was accused of complicity in the racist carnage which resulted in over 1,000 deaths.

Varshney’s work presents many lessons for those who make public policy in Malaysia. There is no doubt that the structure and content of civic life at the inter-ethnic level has been fraying for a long time. In the modern ethical age of human rights and democracy, the latest incidents of university students who do not know how to be civil in the face of differences and competition, and of those tasked with promoting better ethnic understanding producing guidebooks with offensive and divisive content, signal yet again that the time is long overdue for us to sit up and take action.

In an authoritarian state, the easiest course of action to prevent conflict or violence is either to lock up disaffected groups and individuals or, through political fiat, to silence the debate. It gives the appearance of a well-governed and even well-integrated society. But as we know in post-Suharto Indonesia and post-Tito Yugoslavia, and many other countries, simmering conflicts eventually swell to the surface and boil over.

But Malaysia is a democratic state that, in many exemplary, workable and flawed ways, has found mechanisms to manage race relations where other ethnically divided countries have failed. We have had a long history of ethnic peace. In the atmosphere of political liberalisation brought about by the Abdullah administration, many are uncomfortable witnessing the open contestation and debate on a range of public policies, especially on race, religion and women’s rights.

This public space must not be closed if Malaysia’s democracy is to mature and if we are to search for collective, sustainable ways for all of us to live together and share limited resources equitably in a highly competitive, globalised, ever changing world.

For years now, government leaders have wrung their hands over the widening ethnic divide. That the political leadership is taking action is illustrated by new government policies to introduce compulsory ethnic relations course in universities and the five-year national unity and integration action plan. Words have been translated into action. But that is still not enough. The right action must be in the right hands. And it must be implemented, monitored, and open to public debate, feedback and review.

The end of single-race teams and societies in schools and universities is a good start. But where and who are the leaders who will lead this social transformation that is so needed at all levels of Malaysian society? Who will and how will they be trained? How will students and teachers be equipped to deal with competing messages and demands in the name of religious and ethnic supremacy that undermine such inter-ethnic bridge-building efforts? How do we learn to be politically and culturally civil in our contested public engagement, especially on ethnic and religious issues?

In no society is this task easy. But with political will, vision and leadership provided by a stable inter-ethnic coalition government, a Gandhian social transformation can take root in Malaysian society. For unlike others, we have a long and successful history and a heritage of working and living together to build on.