| December 21, 2003 | Sunday | Shawwal 26, 1424 |
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Furore over headscarves
INDIA has come forward with a fairly low-key welcome of the remarks made by President Pervez Musharraf in his BBC interview the other day, interpreting his comment that the UN resolutions on Kashmir could be set aside as an abandonment of Pakistan’s position on a plebiscite in the held territory. There was nothing that was ambiguous, or indeed new, in the interview. The president was being realistic and straightforward in saying that while Pakistan believed in the UN resolutions (“we are for the resolutions”), negotiations on Kashmir and bilateral relations could proceed by putting them aside. There was actually no need for the foreign minister to give the appearance of bending over backward to explain Gen Musharraf’s comments, although Mr Kasuri has been lucid in presenting Pakistan’s case. He has pointed out that the president had previously outlined a four-point proposal to India in which it was specifically mentioned that the centrality of the Kashmir issue should be accepted by both sides. Once this was understood, negotiations could proceed on the basis that what was not acceptable at all to India or Pakistan could be eliminated. In other words, if we remain stuck in the litany of “Kashmir is an integral part of India” or “Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir” and refuse to look at practical ways of breaking the long and debilitating impasse, there would be no point in talking to each other. This is not abandonment of policy, but of seeing how policy can be made to work within the given limitations.
Moreover, the absolutely fundamental need is to find out what the people of Kashmir themselves want. This is what Gen Musharraf had also reiterated in his BBC interview, and this was also the spirit behind the relevant UN resolutions — determining the wishes of Kashmiris. Now, is there any other way in which this can be done? If there is such a way — for instance, by probing the ideas of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a body considered to be generally representative of Kashmiri opinion — is there any harm in exploring such options? There may be other alternatives too. Unless these are discussed and studied, we will remain trapped in a mindset that has been overtaken by events, more particularly events in the last two years. Both Pakistan and India have sometimes given the impression that they are wrangling over Kashmir in their own selfish interests rather than in the interests of the Kashmiris. The military, which shares power in the present set-up, has itself been responsible for making some issues appear to be beyond debate, but if General Musharraf now wants to break out of this groove, India should be more receptive and responsive. For once, a government is trying to prepare public opinion to look at a given situation realistically, which is what all governments with a vision should do. It needs to be supported in this effort.
Unfortunately, most of the country’s political parties have failed to look dispassionately at the many moves recently undertaken to end a state of confrontation with India and move ahead to explore productive avenues for cooperation to the mutual benefit of the region’s vast multitudes. Point-scoring or knee-jerk reactions are the last thing we need at moments such as this that could mark a turning point in the fortunes of South Asia. There should not only be a full and open debate about foreign policy in parliament, but all political parties should also have internal debates about the direction in which we should proceed. The Indian government too should have a dialogue with political parties, and most of all with the Kashmiri people, a proposition that it has so far arrogantly spurned.
AT A seminar on literacy held in Karachi, it was pointed out that inadequate fund allocations and their slow disbursement were the main hurdles in the execution of education schemes. This is true to a large extent. As the Sindh education minister lamented, the delay in funding had prevented his department from distributing free textbooks to the students or pay stipends to girls entitled to them. The problem has become more acute since the devolution plan was implemented a year ago and the local bodies were made responsible for school education. Many councillors and nazims have on and off complained that there have been inordinate delays in the financing process which have hindered the pace of their work and the implementation of projects.
The fact is that the education sector has not been faring as well as it was expected to. Having placed more and more responsibility on the private sector, the government has gradually been withdrawing from the education field. This it has done by slowing down the growth of the education budget and the pace of expansion of the school network. Bottlenecks have at times meant that funds are not available when needed. At other times it seems that whatever is allocated is not fully utilized. But this is only one side of the picture. The Sindh education minister probably forgot that more often than not the money which is sanctioned and made available is not put to honest use. We know that corruption is rife in this department which is manifested in the form of ghost schools, an exorbitantly high rate of absenteeism and missing students. The minister concerned could make a beginning by setting things right in his own department while reminding the finance department of its responsibilities.
THE furore in France over the headscarves issue seems like a mirror image of what sometimes happens in Pakistan, where the opposite happens in terms of women donning attire deemed un-Islamic and then segments of society launching a diatribe against them. France has one of Europe’s largest Muslim immigrant populations but does not want Muslim girls to cover their heads because that act is supposed to detract from the purity of French culture and everything it stands for. Women who don a headscarf in France routinely face harassment and taunt, be it in the workplace, out shopping or even, as a recent case has shown, when chosen to serve on a jury. Frankly speaking, all this fretting and frowning of disapproval by the French liberals, seems pointless, rather sanctimonious. In the current demographic context, France’s obsession with banning all “ostentatious religious symbols” could be very counter-productive. Many in the Muslim minority feel that they are being treated no better than second-class citizens.
French secularism grew out of several centuries of battle between the state and the once-powerful Catholic church. The result is that religious symbols are frowned upon by the state, though one gets the distinct feeling that symbols associated with Islam seem particularly repugnant. Perhaps, the French should realize that when a Muslim teenager wears a scarf, it is as much a part of her sartorial tradition and culture as is the wearing of jeans by a Catholic French girl. Besides, those who think that a culture is threatened just because a teenager decides to cover her head should perhaps ponder over the fact that cultures evolve and if a minority community seeks to integrate this does not mean it can do so only by abandoning its own traditions and customs. French Muslims may now feel less wanted and their integration may well be delayed.