Book Review

“Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India”, Omar Khalidi, Three Essays Collective, September 2003, Pages 126, Price: Rs 150 (India); Elsewhere $15.

The book consists of 126 pages including the references. The points that Omar Khalidi tries to make in the book are:

1)Muslims are under-represented in the Armed Forces and Police forces in comparison to their percentage in the population. The reasons range from lack of education among Muslims to perceived or real discrimination.

2)The Armed Forces and Central police forces generally have a better record of impartiality than the State Police forces.

3)The political masters of the Police force are the key factor in biased or unbiased police behavior.

4)Representation of all ethnic minorities in proportion to their numbers in the population is desirable.

5)No matter who or what started a communal riot, Muslims have allegedly "suffered most deaths, injuries, and loss of property" (page 91)

6) No police officials have ever been brought to justice after reports of their negligence or complicity in ethnic violence.

Where the book falls far below expectation is in the actual contents of the 126 pages, which have a errors of commission, omission, strange theories, contradictions, misinformation, and bias.

One major problem with the book lies in its almost complete concentration of the situation of Muslims. Khalidi refers to "ethnic minorities" with the following sentence in the Preface: "Throughout the book I have referred to "ethnic" to encompass religious groups (Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs), tribe and caste groups ( Scheduled castes and groups and Hindu upper castes), as well as racial groups such as the Gurkhas."

There is no mention of Dalits in this classification, but within the book, Khalidi speaks of violence against Dalits. "Dalits" are a name that Khalidi mentions in isolation, in reference to ethnic violence with no clue offered as to whom they may be. No mention is made of the fact that Dalits are, in fact represented among the Scheduled castes. On the other hand he acknowledges that the scheduled castes, by virtue of the policy of reservation as well as by merit are represented in the Police and other forces in numbers that reflect their proportion in the population. No analysis is made of the effect of the representation of scheduled castes in the forces on the question of violence against the scheduled castes whom Khalidi represents as a separate "ethnic group" other than Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. This is a glaring omission in a book that defines the scheduled castes as a separate ethnic minority and purports to be a study of "Khaki and the ethnic violence in India ".

The situation of Sikhs is dealt with in brief, mainly to note that Sikhs are somewhat over-represented in the forces with respect to their percentage in the population, and references to riots targeting Sikhs after the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

By far the greatest part of the book deals with the situation of Muslims and the book is by no means a comprehensive study of all groups as suggested by its title.

A lot is said about discrimination against Muslims, and that is where the second great weakness of the book lies. An impartial study must not appear to work with a bias; in this book there is a constant undercurrent of projecting Muslims as the victim. The big tragedy in this is that it is easy to pick out these instances and trash the whole work as being biased, ignoring even the little useful information that is presented. That is exactly what will be done with this book. The author could have avoided the "Muslims as victim" tone in the book. Examples abound:

One constant theme in the book is the under-representation of Muslims in the armed and police forces. However, the author considers Maharajas of Mysore as "enlightened", not biased while having a police force with 50% Muslims, far in excess of the population percentage (page 83). The fact that the Nizam of Hyderabad had predominantly Muslims in his police force (page 80), including a unit of Arab guards, is mentioned only to describe the allegedly shabby manner in which this force was disbanded after independence.

On page 56, Khalidi says "India has experienced more than two centuries of violence involving its major communities: Hindus, Dalits, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims". The author would do well to remember that if he speaks of India before 1947, its history goes back several millennia, and a civilizational memory and historical records of pogroms dating from Islamic invasions into India do play a role in attitudes. Attempting to wish them away rather than addressing them directly is an act of unpardonable academic negligence.

On the other hand, time limits do not seem to be much of a problem when highlighting other information. Some references as old as reports in the Indian media in 1973 (page 64) and 1969 (page 66) are used to paint a picture of unremitting bias against Muslims.

The book is full of other examples of questionable statements:

On page 33 Khalidi describes Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as a "known bigot"

On page 67 Khalidi states that Police in India carry "lathis, bamboo staffs tipped with iron". That is wrong, lathis are not tipped with iron and are made according to certain specifications. Many are now made of fiberglass.

On page 103 Khalidi says: "More than one observer has noticed the appearance of Hindu temples and Hindu religious images in police stations to the exclusion of those of the minority faiths". It is not clear whether the author objects to Hindu icons in police stations, or whether he is objecting to the lack of non-Hindu religious icons. Khalidi himself says why there are few Muslims in many police forces, and under the circumstances, a police station manned largely by Hindus cannot be expected to set up icons for those who are not present. Khalidi makes no attempt to ask if police personnel of religious minorities are prevented from performing minor acts of religious significance in the few police stations that do have them, such as the wearing of a cross or observance of an afternoon prayer or religious fast.

Khalidi says that an expectation of discrimination and lack of education are two important reasons for the low percentage of Muslims in the police forces. In addition he speaks of a "linguistic barrier" to the recruitment of Muslims. The suggestion is that Muslims are somehow confronted with a barrier against recruitment. The barrier is their lack of a working knowledge of the local language, such as Kannada in Karnataka, and Marathi in Maharashtra. Ignorance of a local language means lack of education, rather than a "barrier" that has been imposed and references to a barrier could be termed as motivated, at best. Khalidi is either ignorant or attempting to propagate misinformation in this regard, because every Indian State has linguistic minorities living in domicile who make every effort to learn the local language to improve their employment opportunities. For example the state of Karnataka has people whose language at home may be as different from the official Kannada as Tulu, Konkani, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Sindhi, Gujarati, Urdu or Hindi. Khalidi has expended no effort in assessing how people with such linguistic backgrounds fare.

A few strange beliefs are evident in the book. It appears that Khalidi considers Gurkhas a separate "race", although he does not specify why he says that, in the preface. The author is also ambiguous about the now defunct "martial races" theory.

A final quibble. The book ends with a "comparative perspective" comparing the nations of "South Asia". Ethnic violence between Pashtuns and others in Afghanistan gets a mention, as does the Sinhala-Tamil violence in Sri Lanka. Pakistan is mentioned only for the violence against Bengalis in 1971. There is no mention of the ethnic cleansing of religious minorities in Pakistan from 1947 leading to a decrease in the population of minorities from over 15% in 1947 to 3% now. Bangladesh is not even mentioned. Pakistan and Bangladesh, with a culture and history similar to that of India make ideal nations for comparison with India not to mention the fact that they make up over 20% of the population of "South Asia"

All in all it seems that the intent of the book is ostensibly noble, but its execution leaves too many loose ends and biases that can and definitely will be picked up to trash the work, and negate the few useful facts or suggestions that may be gleaned from this incomplete and controversial study. This is not a book you would read for either comprehensive or unbiased information on the subject.

Shivshankar Sastry