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Last night I
was in the audience for the filming of the latest of the Doha
Debates, the series of discussions headed by Tim Sebastian and
broadcast by BBC World News. Held within the quite solace of St
Stephen's College, one of the most prestigious colleges within Delhi
University, the debates were breaking new ground by holding their
first event in Asia.
I had been in
two minds whether to go, mainly because I thought the issue being
discussed, "This house believes that Muslims are not getting a fair
deal in India", seems to be so overwhelmingly obvious. Ever since
the government-appointed Sachar Committee reported in 2006 that
Muslims in India had less access to education, government jobs and
survived on lower incomes than average, it seemed the issue was
settled. Of course, there are plenty of Muslims who reach the
heights in India, from politicians through to Bollywood stars such
as Shah Rukh Khan, but taken as a whole it would be hard to argue
that Muslims did not suffer discrimination.
Indeed, when
the debate got started it seemed everyone taking part agreed on this
issue, including the two participants challenging the motion. The
veteran journalist MJ Akbar, who has spent much of his career
highlighting discrimination in India, was one of the two taking on
this task and even he admitted "you cannot say that Muslims get an
entirely fair deal". Sachin Pilot, a young government minister, (he
is also the son of a former Congress minister) and an alumni of St
Stephen's, also admitted things were not perfect. Yet he argued that
there were many elements within Indian society that suffered and it
was not that Muslims suffered particular discrimination.
Against
this, Seema Mustafa, a journalist and political commentator, said
the government had done little for Muslims who had been especially
victimised by security forces since the 9/11 attacks. Teesta
Setalvad, a prominent civil rights activist, claimed that Muslims
were being excluded from the "elite political and economic
leadership of India". "The Muslim today lives in a segregated class
leading to ghettoisation and a consequently very dangerous
situation. Above all, Muslim women are discriminated against to make
sure a credible leadership does not emerge," she said.
They also
mentioned the Indian establishment's refusal to properly bring to
justice those responsible for attacks on Muslims, be it the
destruction of the Babri Masjid of the appalling misnamed Gujarat
"riots" in which hundreds of Muslims were brutally murdered in a
systematic operation assisted by elements within the local
government, headed by the right-wing nationalist Narendra Modi, a
man who has been tipped as a possible future leader of the country.
In fact, so
obvious to me was the outcome of the debate, that I left early. I
was rather surprised therefore to wake up and discover that the vote
had gone the other way. The vote by the students of the college,
alumni of which account for six current government ministers, found
that 63 per cent opposed the motion while only 37 agreed.
So what to
make of this? In a situation where the statistics apparently prove
one thing, how could a group of such young smart people have voted
the other way. Were they really taken in by Sachin Pilot's
disingenuous argument that "everyone in India has an equal
opportunity" or what it simply that was this was what they wanted to
believe (and who would not wish for such a situation). I couldn't
help thinking there was something of a cycle here: if the sorts of
people that get to become government ministers in India are drawn
from educational establishments seemingly so blind to the obvious
pitfalls of their society then maybe that's why nothing get's
changed. And yes, one could say the same thing about plenty of other
countries all around the world.
Courtesy: The
Independents, UK
Andrew Buncombe,
The Independent's Asia Correspondent is based in Delhi. His
dominion ranges over India, Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, occasionally parts of South East Asia and - or at least he is
hoping - The Maldives.
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