My first ever visit to Europe, to attend a seminar on Dalit rights and development at London and a seminar on UN treaty bodies at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, between 20-30 Septem- ber 2001, came at a time when not only the USA but also Europe was undergoing psychological trauma. For me the experience was a re- vealing one for a number of reasons. I realized that the post-Durban global discourse on caste and the Dalit question has made a differ- ence to the attitude of Western intelligentsia to the hitherto unknown (to them) civil societal relations within India. At least some of them seem to have re-examined what they think they know of India in the light of the Durban conference and its discoveries.
While I was at Durban I found that many Europeans and Afro- Americans were surprised to learn that an Indian mode of apartheid called untouchability exists. T h e seminar on the UN treaty bodies at Utrecht, particularly its focus on economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights, also seemed to open a new chapter of discourse in the realm of human rights in the world. With the growth of terrorism that con- tinually violates human rights on such a large scale, the Western in- telligentsia seems to be shifting the discourse from political and civil rights to the ESC rights of people.
But what struck me most in Europe is the non-existence of In- dia—a nation of 100 million people—in the intellectual realm of average Europeans. Maybe the time I was in Europe was not condu- cive to judging them, as their intellectual abilities were then capti-
A Lesson to Be Learnt 23 vated by Osama bin Laden and the haunting fear of the globalized terrorism that may now be called Ladenism. But it was also a proper time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the capitalist West. T h e average European, after the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, appeared to go to office, come back home and go to bed with a sense of fear.
Afghanistan, a small country, occupied all the space in the media. Pakistan for them is not a terrorist source nation, as India would have them know, but at the moment a container of terrorism and therefore, in their contingent thinking, on the side of the good. More than con- cern over what relations they should have with Islamic nations or with India, European minds are full of the fear of Ladenism and the question of how to root it out. But how is it that one incident in America can leave the whole of European society so terrorized?
Ladenism has destroyed the confidence of capitalism itself. Capi- talism has grown through a careful negation of religious fundamen- talism. Even within the Christian world, religious dogmatism was slowly yet surely set aside. T h e countries of Europe, each in their own way, sought to establish a thorough spiritual and civil societal democracy within them. Free and equal man-woman relations under- mining all religious controls became possible in this mode of liberal capitalist democracy. Meanwhile class inequalities of the world in- creased so much that the receding colonial West left Third World countries in a bad state of poverty and hunger and then made them permanent debtors by advancing high interest loans. The Europeans are not willing to concede that colonialism resulted in the massive transfer of capital resources from the colonies to Europe. That is the reason why at the Duiban conference the Euro-American nations re- fused to concede the payment of reparations. T h e frustration of Third World countries and the casually fabulous wealth of the West are fraught with many intolerable tensions. The feudal fundamental- ist mode of Ladenism has been born and nurtured in this troubled global situation.
The Islamic countries, on the other hand, live essentially in spiri- tual authoritarianism, wherein neither development of capitalism nor political democracy has acquired any autonomous space. Islam, as it has solidified into a religious dogma, does not allow free thinking independent of Quranic thought. As a result, the Islamic countries have a civil society that has a one-dimensional mindset across coun- tries, with no scope for pluralist thought and practice. At the same
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time most of these countries have not developed strong economies of their own that could match the capitalism of the developed na- tions that had something to do with the Christian ethic and the civil society that grew from it.
Poverty and unemployment within the Islamic world have reached their peak. In spite of their strong socio-spiritual oneness, serious class differences exist among Muslims wherein feudal Ladenism can have so much wealth to pursue terrorism. T h e aristo- crats and leaders of the Muslim world have been unable to direct the energies of their youth into science and technological progress. Vet the West knows for sure that the Islamic world can twist its arms merely through its power of spiritual oneness. While living in mediaevalism even a society like Afghanistan can put serious demands on the Western world because of the strong social bond- ing that the religion has been able to construct within Islamic civil society.
India becomes an invisible force in such an international scenario because caste and graded inequalities do not produce the required strength that the capitalist and democratic pluralism of the West has been able to give to European countries. With a Hindutva-based political party at the helm of affairs, even the moral cutting edge that India used to have during the Congress and other coalition regimes has been lost. With the undemocratic approach the Hindutva govern- ment adopted at the Durban conference, the I.idian rulers have been thoroughly exposed. Now those who know something about India in the West also know that there is a vast untouch able population called the Dalits in India and there is a semi-terrorist c -ganisation called the RSS, which has the full backing of the main ruling party. Thanks to attacks by the RSS on Indian Christians, about whom the Europe-
ans are concerned, the credibility of the BJn is very low. This is
where its diplomatic problems must be located.
T h e Euro-Americans faced a similar fearsome situation with Hitlerite fascism and the Soviet mode of communism. But both fas- cism and communism were products of their own ideological con- struction. Though communism was seen as the enemy of capitalism within Europe, the socialist ideology led to serious political move- ments in capitalist countries and an enormous project to re-work their economic and socio-cultural relations. Fascism created terror among many and Europe saw the end of it quite quickly. Now what they are
A Lesson to Be Learnt 25 facing is entirely different. Ladenism comes from an unexpected source of communalism that has no progressive agenda of its own. It is here that one can see a similarity between Ladenist and RSS com- munalism. All communalisms have a tendency of ending in terror- ism. This is where pure religious ideology needs to be conditioned with secularism, at least for the present.
T h e Euro-Americans are faced with a terrorism that has deep re- ligious roots. All religious fundamentalisms avoid association with any economic agenda for the abolition of poverty and hunger, since religious fundamentalism has no serious understanding of political democracy. In fact, both Islamic and Hindu fundamentalists have not shown any symptoms of the internal strength necessary to allow sci- ence and technology to grow. They have an inward-looking system of spirituality that does not allow the human being to regenerate with constant innovation. Religious schools use science for destructive purposes but they cannot build positive technology.
T h e fear of Westerners among Islamic states now is based on the long-drawn-out history of religious wars the world has lived through. T h e present capitalist and democratic freedoms have their roots in the Christian spiritual democratic ethic that evolved through the con- testation of the Bible itself. The Arabic world that was organized into a spiritually homogenized social force under the strong influence of the Quran has slowly degenerated into spiritual authoritarianism without granting liberal democratic scope for socio-political and eco- nomic experiments. Islam seems to leave the question of economic development to Quranic thought which is problematic in itself. A system of spiritual thought born in a desert achieved tremendous human homogenization which became a strength of that society. That cultural homogeneity with strong civil societal bonding achieved many things in the early centuries of Islamic formation. But subsequently by clinging to a one-dimensional way of thinking the Islamic societies stagnated. When such a one-dimensional social group decides to use advanced capitalist technology for destructive purposes, it can easily do as Ladenism has done. But it cannot con- struct critical knowledge capable of advancing human progress.
The Europeans are terribly afraid that the advanced instruments of their own innovation can be used against them. To counter that possibility in the psychological realm many Euro-Americans are now suddenly drawn to the church. Prayers are being conducted with the
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purpose of creating a new ethic in their own civil society, and civili- zation is suddenly being re-located in the realm of religion. This in itself may lead to a clash of civilizations, perhaps forcing a world war on all humankind. Will Hindutva forces learn from this experience and dismantle the communal networks that they have built to save India from Ladenism and Golwalkarism as well?